The United Arab Emirates decided to lend help to the East African country, Somalia by providing medical aid for the fight against COVID-19 and also extend the help to the autonomous region in southern Somalia, Jubaland, on June 24,2020.

An aircraft carrying seven metric tons of medical aid landed in Somalia last night to help the African country curb coronavirus spread in the nation. At present, nearly 7,000 medical professionals are fighting this war against corona in Somalia and the autonomous region and this help sent to them by the UAE government is with the hope that it will contribute to fight corona.

On receiving help from the middle eastern country, Mohammed Ahmed Othman Al Hammadi, UAE Ambassador to Somalia, said, "The medical assistance sent to Jubaland, Somalia today affirms the UAE leadership's keenness to support international efforts to combat the COVID-19 virus, particularly in African countries. This aid also aims to provide urgently needed medical supplies to thousands of medical professionals treating Somali patients and confronting the pandemic."

This is the second time when UAE came forward in helping Somalia fight the dreaded disease. Earlier, in the month of April, UAE with the help of the World Health Organisation(WHO) had sent 27,000 metric tons of medical aid of which seven metric ton were contributed by the UAE. This had benefited more than 27,000 healthcare workers to strengthen efforts to contain the virus’ spread.

Somalia is not the only country that received help by the UAE. Since the spread of coronavirus started, this middle eastern country has helped 68 countries by providing over 963 metric tons of aid to support medical professionals.

WAM