Some 55 tons of EU-funded medical supplies entered northwestern Syria from Turkey on Thursday, a UN health official told Agence France-Presse.
Part of an EU air bridge to Syria, the supplies passed through Turkey’s southern Cilvegözü border gate and were taken to a warehouse in the northwestern city of Idlib, Mrinalini Santhanam of the World Health Organization said.
“There’s one more air bridge, and it is planned for February,” she told AFP, saying it was “still in the planning stages” with talks “to determine the volume and the scale.”
The supplies, which will be distributed to healthcare centers in Idlib and the Aleppo region, are part of an EU humanitarian bridge announced by Brussels on December 13.
The aim is to support Syria’s battered healthcare system following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad by rebels on December 8.
Included in the shipment were 8,000 emergency surgical kits, anesthetic supplies, IV fluids, sterilization materials and medication to prevent disease outbreaks, the WHO said.
The civil war, which broke out in 2011, devastated Syria’s healthcare system, with “almost half of the hospitals [there] not functional,” WHO planning analyst Lorenzo Dal Monte told AFP in late December.
He said a 50-ton shipment from Dubai had included “mainly trauma and surgical kits.”
Another five tons of supplies were brought in from another stockpile in Denmark, including emergency health kits as well as winter clothing and water purification tablets, the WHO said.