Turkish Red Crescent receives humanitarian aid award

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

The Turkish Red Crescent (Kizilay) received the Humanitarian Aid Award on Tuesday at the Global Donors Forum in London.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency at the award ceremony, the organization’s president, Kerem Kinik, said the award is “not a coincidence” as Turkey hosts the greatest number of refugees in the world.

“Philanthropy has been passed from generation to generation by the Turkish nation as a real legacy,” Kinik said.

He said the award presented to Kizilay was “indeed presented to all humanity and philanthropists”.

Kinik stressed that the pain and injustice suffered by forcibly displaced people in many corners of the world was increasing every day.

“Therefore, our duty increases every passing day,” he said.

Regarding the ongoing situation in northern Syria, Kinik said up to 4.5 million people completely depended on aid from Turkey.

Idlib crisis

Kinik noted that people in Syria’s northwestern city of Idlib have become refugees more than once.

“Unfortunately, areas with the most dense civilian population are being bombarded in Idlib,” he said.

Pointing out that innocent people, including children, are being killed in the latest operations in Idlib, Kinik described the bombardments as unacceptable.

“Our call to the whole world is to end those attacks immediately,” he said.

“If there was something achievable with weapons in Syria, it would have been achieved in the last eight years.

“One million people lost their lives. There is only one exit point: common sense and peace.

“The number of NGOs, UN organizations or fund providers is unfortunately very low. This [therefore] becomes our job. We are paying our debt to Syrians whose grandfathers were martyred at Gallipoli. We will increase our aid in this region as much as we can.”

Warning of new migration wave

Kinik told Anadolu Agency that “no country, including Turkey, would be able to deal with a new migration wave and it would affect not only Turkey but also cause a movement of distrust in many locations in the world, especially in Europe.”

He said a new migration wave would cause a new chaos that would spread across the globe.

At the award ceremony held at Mansion House in London, Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdogan was presented with the Humanitarian Service Recognition Award for her aid work related to Arakan Muslims.

Turkish Airlines also received the Creative Philanthropy Award for sending cargo planes with food supplies to support an aid campaign called Love Army for Somalia.