Humanitarian aid for Armenia and Georgia
19.06.2020
- Today’s shipment is a gesture of solidarity and cooperation with our partners, particularly with the Eastern Partnership countries. The mutual support that we provide to each other will make the adverse effects of the pandemic easier to overcome and will help us return to the path of growth, - said Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński at Wroclaw airport on 19 June 2020 as he attended the departure of military aircraft loaded with protective equipment for hospitals, doctors and nurses in Armenia and Georgia.
PLN 106,000 worth of aid including medical-grade masks, visors and disinfectant liquid have been flown to Armenia. Georgia will receive a load of shields and disinfectants worth over PLN 183,000. An aircraft carrying similar cargo of medical supplies is scheduled to fly to Azerbaijan next week.
The supplies will be distributed among the people most in need by State Centre for Humanitarian Aid at Armenia’s Ministry of Health and Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Crisis Management Service. The Georgian part of the aid is delivered by Poland under NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC).
- These gestures of solidarity and assistance show that we share with Eastern Partnership countries what we have – not only in our everyday, routine cooperation, but especially in extraordinary situations such as the global coronavirus pandemic, - underlined Jan Dziedziczak, Undersecretary of State at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland . He also noted that such extensive aid was only possible thanks to the generosity of the donors – the Material Reserves Agency and the Ministry of Health. The deputy minister also thanked the International Solidarity Fund and the Ministry of National Defence for their support. “It is the efficiency and commitment of the Polish army that made it possible for the delivery to reach its beneficiaries” he said.
But there is more to Polish aid. In early June, a team of doctors, nurses and paramedics of the Polish Centre for International Aid started their three-week mission in Tajikistan. We successfully completed similar missions to Italy, the USA and Kyrgyzstan before. Two Polish aid convoys arrived in Belarus. The latter consisted of over 40 vehicles carrying 300 tonnes of medical and protective equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Polish aid, targeting our neighbours and friends in the East, is an important element of Poland’s foreign policy. We thus confirm that Poland is capable of responding to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it is a vital part of development assistance provided by Poland in the spirit of international solidarity, by means of which we meet our international commitments.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Press Office
Photo: MFA