Interim Giro555 campaign for Turkey and Syria: more than 108 million euros

A week after the national action day, the Dutch donated 108,501,189 euros to Giro555. The two largest actions in the history of Giro555, for the victims of the Asian tsunami in 2004 and the earthquake victims in Haiti in 2010, raised 208 million and 111 million respectively.

“This is a fantastic amount and shows the enormous commitment of many Dutch people to the victims of this disaster,” says Michiel Servaes, action chairman Giro555. “Since last week’s action day, about 20 million euros have been donated. enough, the border area between Turkey and Syria was hit again this week by another earthquake causing even more damage.”

With the proceeds, the cooperating aid organizations behind Giro555 provide emergency aid such as shelter, clothing, medical care and food to tens of thousands of affected people in the two countries. Servaes visited the affected region last week. He then went to the Turkish cities of Gaziantep and Antakya, among others. The aid organizations behind Giro555 are ‘continuing to expand their emergency aid’, he says – partly thanks to the donations.

For example, according to the organization, the Red Cross distributed “more than 20 million hot meals and 15 million water bottles” in the affected provinces. In Syria, Save the Children provided, among other things, ‘7500 people with ready-to-eat hot meals’, and Oxfam has been supplying around 182,000 liters of clean water a day since the earthquake in the affected areas in and around Aleppo and provides 40,000 people with drinking water . Unicef ​​also distributes clean water in Aleppo every day – 300,000 liters for 20,000 families.

Meanwhile, money is still being collected in the Netherlands. Comedian Theo Maassen, for example, will hold a benefit performance for Giro555 on Wednesday 1 March, together with Henry van Loon and Sezgin Güleç.

Watch our videos about the earthquake in Turkey and Syria here: