UAE sends field hospital, medical team to provide urgent aid to quake-hit Afghanistan

The UAE sent a 75-bed field hospital, two operating rooms, medical supplied, and a medical team to earthquake-hit Afghanistan, the Emirates News Agency WAM reported on Saturday.

The relief material was sent by three planes and reportedly under the directives of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

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Eisa Salem Aldhaheri, UAE Ambassador to Afghanistan, said: “The UAE recently sent an aid plane carrying 30 metric tonnes of food supplies as part of the relief air bridge for earthquake victims in Afghanistan. The shipment is addressing the food shortage for a large number of families and vulnerable groups, especially women and children, affected by the earthquake.”

Talks between the United States and the Taliban continued in Doha earlier this week to discuss earthquake aid, the State Department said Friday, months after the two parties last meet in the Qatari capital in March.

The Taliban is seeking a way to unlock some the country’s foreign reserves – currently frozen by the United States – following a devastating earthquake last month, with the United States looking for assurances the money would go to help the population.

During the meetings Wednesday and Thursday, the United States reiterated an earlier pledge of $55 million in new assistance for earthquake relief, the State Department said in a statement Friday.

And “the two sides discussed in detail US actions to preserve $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves for the benefit of the Afghan people,” the statement said, money which the White House said last week the US was “urgently” working to sort out.

Last week’s 5.9-magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, which killed more than 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless, adds urgency to the funding debate.

In the same week, the UAE sent 30 tons of aid, including essential food supplies, to Afghanistan.

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