By Hanan Alnufaie
Saudi Gazette
RIYADH — Under the title “Towards an Unrestricted Humanity” King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center held its first press conference on November 21st at Riyadh Marriott hotel to talk about the center from different perspectives; its foundation, accomplishments, and challenges that face the center’s delivery of aid especially in Yemen.
Mr. Mahir Al-Hadhrawi CEO of the center said that the center was established on May 13th,2015 and ever since it has distributed humanitarian and medical aid to 19 countries including: Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Albania, and Ecuador. Al-Hadhrawi then explained the work ethics followed by the center saying, “Here in the center, we deliver the aid to the needy people around the world with total neutrality and transparency, and we also work in cooperation with UN and other international humanitarian organizations.”
Then, Mr. Faleh Alsobeie, who is the head of the statistics department, spoke about the achievements of the center saying “the center spent a total of 562,616,819 US dollars on 124 projects including providing shelters, food security, education, protection, early recovery, health, nutrition, water, emergency telecommunications, and logistics. We had 52 projects on providing shelters to 22,561,368 beneficiaries, 13 projects on education, protection, and early recovery to 3,914,236 beneficiaries, 52 projects on health, nutrition, and water, sanitation and hygiene to 25,612,323 beneficiaries and 7 projects on emergency telecommunications and logistics."
Then, the speakers talked on Yemen humanitarian crisis and the delivery of aid saying that “we had some difficulty in providing the aid to Taiz due to Houthis’ siege but we successfully delivered most of the aid through cooperation with Arab coalition, Saudi ministry of Defense, and through road and air bridges. We even used camels to transfer oxygen to the hospitals which run short of basic medical supplies. In Hudaidah province, the center was unable to reach the devastated areas due to continuous attacks by the militants."
When asked about the policy the center follows to ensure the delivery of the aid, Alduwaihi said “we rely on reports by international humanitarian organizations about the aid received, there is always full cooperation between the center and the government of Yemen and we assign civil organizations for detailed reports about the entire process.”
