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Yelena Agapova, the deputy chairman of the IOPS
The humanitarian situation in Syria is the worst since the Second World War.
Today, 6.8 million people in Syria need humanitarian support, and need it now.
4,250,000 people are internally-displaced people who have no home.
1,940,000, Syrians left the country and became refugees.
As you know, Europe is at the moment upset with the great number of people who are refugees from Syria.
Our Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society has already sent six batches of humanitarian aid to Damascus
since March 31 of this year.
To date, the most pressing issue is the lack of the ambulances for the hospitals
and medical institutions of Damascus and its regions.
Moreover, not just of ambulances, but of "first aiders" equipped with all the necessary respiratory equipment,
able to maintain cardiac function, because most of these emergency vehicles were destroyed by militants.
Also, at the moment there is a great need for formula milk for children,
because as a result of the unilateral economic sanctions introduced against Syria under various pretexts,
baby food is not delivered to Syria today.
There is literally nothing to feed children younger than 1 today.
In the case of military aggression against the country, and it pains me to say this, of a part of the Holy Land,
the whole Middle East will boil over.
Many countries will be involved in the military conflict;
just one missile strike is able to ruin the world.
It is obvious that missile strikes will cause mass victims among the population, bloody chaos,
destruction of the infrastructure of the country, as well as religious shrines,
churches, monasteries, religious clans and communities which have been living in Syria for centuries.
Christian civilization will stop existing in Syria, if the scenario is implemented.
Sergey Baydako, the chairman of the Moscow office of the IOPS
Almost a quarter of the population of the Syrian Republic are, in fact, internally-displaced persons.
These are internal refugees in Syria who live in refugee camps and, accordingly,
are experiencing an acute shortage of food, childcare facilities, medicines, medical supplies and medical equipment.
In this regard, the Society has undertaken a mission to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria,
and most of all, of course, we have formulated for ourselves an understanding of what the Syrian people need today.
And, as Yelena Aleksandrovna has already said,
in the spring of this year there was an appeal to all Muscovites and all Russian citizens, to legal persons.
As a result, nearly 70 tons of cargo has been collected.
Mostly, durable foods such as cereals, sugar, dry mixes, cookies, crackers,
necessary long-lasting medications and medical equipment.
Our appeal has found a wide response throughout the Russian Federation.
And I can name two pharmaceutical companies, Vera Farm and Farm Standart,
which have sent vans full of cargo to Moscow, which consisted of medical equipment and medicines.
Collection of donations was announced in churches, people came there, some donated money, others warm clothes and food.
All this, of course, was accepted and taken into account.
As a result, we can say that the aid geography on the territory of the Russian Federation
stretched across the whole country from Moscow to Vladivostok.
And in fact we got feedback from almost all the places in our country.
In addition to what Yelena Aleksandrovna has already said, I would like, of course,
especially to thank the Moscow government and particularly two departments
- the Department of Commerce and Trade and the Department of Transport.
We would like to thank all of them and say thank you from our hearts to the Association of Arab Affinity Groups
led by Dr. Hassan Nasrullah.
And, of course, I would like to highlight the role of our volunteers
- the activists of the Moscow Volunteer Movement,
the activists of the Youth Council of the Central Administrative Region of Moscow
and the youth of the Russian Union of Rescuers.
We were definitely relying on the delivery and distribution of our humanitarian assistance.
We put in a lot of effort to control it.
And our special working group that visited Damascus, visited the suburbs, also controlled it.
That is why our humanitarian aid was indeed relevant and on time.
At the same time, our work does not end here.
Today, our working group that visited the Syrian Arab Republic has come back with a request,
not even a request but a plea for help regarding food for children affected by the continuous war in Syria.
This applies mainly to baby formula, instant milk, and at the moment we are busy dealing with it.
On August 23 a fundraiser for the collection of instant products
was announced to provide humanitarian aid to children in Syria.
Two weeks have already passed, more than a million rubles have been collected, we continue this work.
We are receiving calls from all over Russia.
Moreover , we have already had calls from Germany, Latvia, France and Canada.
People call us and ask how they can wire funds for humanitarian aid.
At the moment there is an account opened by the foundations of Saints Constantine and Helena.
It is a foundation that raised funds also in the first stage of collecting the humanitarian aid.
The Church of Elijah the Prophet in the 2nd Obydensky Side Street continues to collect donations.
Taking advantage of today's opportunity, I would like to address our fellow citizens
with a request to provide all possible assistance, depending on means,
in order to collect humanitarian aid and send it to the children affected by military actions.