Kuwait has for several years now been in the vanguard of global humanitarian work, providing enormous amounts of relief work and emergency assistance to needy people in times of both natural and man-made calamities and crises around the world. Addressing the media last month on the occasion of World Humanitarian Action Day on 10 August, Deputy Chairman of Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS), Anwar Al-Hasawi, said that Kuwait’s long record of humanitarian aid for the needy has seen KRCS initiating hundreds of relief programs and campaigns to alleviate the suffering of people from poverty, conflicts and natural disasters.
Most recently, Kuwait has had to deal with two major catastrophes in the second week of September that claimed the lives of over 14,000 people. The first was caused by the powerful earthquake that shook Morocco and spread devastation across a wide swath of the kingdom, rendering entire villages in remote mountainous areas into mounds of rubble, The same week, a second catastrophe erupted when a massive storm and ensuing rainfall caused a dam in Libya’s Derna to burst unleashing torrents of water that thrust its way through narrow alleys and streets carrying away everything in its wake, and flooding many populated areas.
As part of Kuwait’s relief air bridge for Libya, at least five plane-loads of supplies were dispatched to the stricken country, said Hamad Al-Aoun, the deputy director general of ‘Al-Salam’ charity. He added that the association had dispatched tons of supplies including masks, beds, wheelchairs and other medical accessories. They had to also send huge amounts of detergents and chemical substances to fight viruses, amid fears that Libya might witness an outbreak of epidemics due to rotting dead bodies everywhere, many still submerged in mud or lying drowned, particularly in Derna, the hardest hit region.
For his part, Abdullah Al-Traiji, Chairman of Kuwait Scout Association, declared that the society along with their counterpart associations in Arab countries raised donations to relieve the victims in both Libya and Morocco. Speaking on the same vein, Omar Al-Thuwaini, the general supervisor of the relief campaign, ‘Fazaat al-Maghreb,” said 14 Kuwaiti societies joined hands to assist the quake victims in Libya. He indicated that the aid included blankets and food parcels.
Meshari Al-Enezi, an official of ‘Al-Najat’ charity, said the next phase of the humanitarian operation would be rebuilding houses, schools and medical centers. Moreover, the Kuwaiti embassy in Morocco organized a blood donation campaign for helping the injured.
Since the start of 2023, Kuwait has also established an air bridge sending 16 plane-loads of relief material including tons of medical and food supplies to the Sudanese people.
In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that jolted Turkey early this year, the Kuwaiti medical team ‘Shifaa’ were present to provide medical assistance to victims in the south of the country. The team were already in Turkey when the earthquake struck, as they were attending to the needs of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who escaped war in their home country.
Dr. Husam Bechir, the head of a Kuwaiti team of surgeons at ‘Shifaa’, said the group arrived in Hatay, South Turkey, to follow-up on previous missions that had been undertaken by other Kuwaiti doctors with backing from Kuwait Zakat (alms) House. The ‘Shifaa’ team has a record of executing relief missions in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and Somalia. Up to 8,500 patients have been treated or given medical aid in these countries, said Dr. Bechir.
On a related note from the region, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Sheikh Abdullah Nouri Charity signed a cooperation agreement for aiding Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The UNHCR acting representative in Kuwait, Maher Ishaqat, said in a statement the accord was the third to be signed with Abdullah Al-Nouri Society, indicating that the two entities have become bonded through a strategic partnership and were involved in joint fund-raising activities for aiding Syrian refugees in winter months.
The charitable hands of Kuwait have stretched across the region reaching Egypt, where Kuwait Office for Charitable Projects delivered 24 fishing boats and tools to limited-income Egyptian fishermen. Up to US$30,000 had also been granted by the Kuwaiti Al-Najat charity to assist fishermen who depended on ramshackle boats to earn bread.
Over the years, Kuwait has dispatched relief to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in their home country of Myanmar. In Bangladesh, the refugees were housed in impoverished camps. The Regional Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Mamadou Sow, lauded Kuwait for supporting the ICRC’s efforts to provide relief to the Rohingya. For its part, the International Islamic Charity Organization distributed 11,000 livestock sacrificed as part of Eid Al Adha to 440,000 people in 25 countries, a practice it has conducted every year for the past many years. For its part, ‘Rahma around the World’ launched a project in Palestine’s Gaza Strip to aid people with special needs through support from the Kuwaiti Al-Awqaf Secretariat General.
In the aftermath of the fiery blast that rendered Beirut port and nearby residential districts largely heaps of ruins, Kuwait Red Crescent Society renovated and rehabilitated the maternity ward of Al-Makassed Hospital in Beirut. Kuwait had also given aid to other hospitals that were damaged in the explosion that affected wide sections of the Lebanese capital.
Khaled Al-Zaid, the KRCS director of public relations and media, said that Kuwaiti humanitarian aid has over the years helped in shaping a positive image of the State of Kuwait abroad. “Kuwait’s humanitarian aid has constituted a soft power of the state’s diplomacy. Al-Zaid, who was speaking during the Qatar Red Crescent celebration of International Day for Humanitarian Law in Doha, said the participants in the event discussed a task paper themed ‘Media and humanitarian diplomacy’, shedding light on Kuwait as an oasis for good deeds.
He added that the name Kuwait has become synonymous with humanitarian deeds worldwide, and Kuwait’s generous assistance for people in need everywhere led the United Nations to designate Kuwait as the center for humanitarian action and the late former Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah as the leader for humanitarian action.