Libya’s Misrata mobilizes aid for quake victims in Türkiye

By Aydogan Kalabalik

MISRATA, Libya (AA) - The people of Libya’s third-largest city, Misrata, sent 12 truckloads of humanitarian relief items Thursday to quake-hit regions of Türkiye.

Coordinated by Türkiye’s Consulate General in Misrata, the Libyan Red Crescent and Misrata Municipality, the humanitarian supplies were loaded onto a ship that was set to embark on its journey to Türkiye late Thursday.

"The people of Türkiye and the Turkish Red Crescent have always stood by us. We wanted to stand by the Turkish people in this time of great disaster, which saddened us," Fethi Shibani, the director of the Libyan Red Crescent in Misrata, told Anadolu.

The ship loaded with humanitarian aid will carry generators, electric heaters, blankets and clothes to quake victims in southern Türkiye.

A team of 25 people from the Libyan Red Crescent who are experts in locating the missing and retrieving bodies had set out for Türkiye, he added.

Mahmud Mirsadi, a senior official from Misrata Municipality, said: “In the first phase, we collected 12 truckloads of humanitarian aid. Our warehouses are full of aid. We will send two more ships.”

Mirsadi said that they wanted to establish an "air aid corridor" between Tripoli and Türkiye to facilitate the dispatch.

Türkiye’s Consul General to Misrata, Fatih Ugurlu, said they initiated an aid campaign through social media after the devastating earthquakes.

The list of primary needs was handed over to the associations and the Misrata Municipality upon their request, Ugurlu said.

"The people of Misrata in general are very thoughtful. Most of those who visited our Consulate General said they are of Turkish origin, that they have a special love for our country, and that friendship is understood in such difficult times," he added.

At least 38,044 people were killed by two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, the country's disaster agency said early Friday.

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes were centered in Kahramanmaras and struck 10 other provinces – Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Kilis, Osmaniye, Elazig and Sanliurfa. More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating quakes.

Several countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon, also felt the strong tremors that struck Türkiye in the space of less than 10 hours.