A humanitarian appeal to help people in need in the Middle East has raised more than £3 million in Scotland since being launched in October.
The Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal has also raised more than £35 million across the UK, which includes £10 million in UK Aid Match and £200,000 support from the Scottish Government.
Millions of people across the Middle East have fled their homes in search of safety over the past year. This appeal is now helping DEC member charities reach some of the most vulnerable with lifesaving aid.
In Gaza, stormy weather and flooding is affecting families in makeshift shelters and the money is being used to help supply blankets, warm clothes and hot food.
DEC charities and local partners also provide direct cash support to help people buy essential supplies from local markets where prices soar.
Similarly, in Lebanon, DEC charities and local partners continue to support people who’ve been forced from their homes.
READ MORE:
-
DEC fundraising in Scotland for Middle East appeal reaches £2.5 million
-
DEC Middle East fundraiser raises almost £1 million in Scotland in first 24 hours
-
Six Scottish charities lead DEC's Middle East Humanitarian Appeal as crisis grows
On Wednesday, King Charles and Queen Camilla spoke to volunteer fundraisers and DEC staff who have recently returned from Gaza to thank them for their efforts in recent weeks.
Saleh Saeed, Chief Executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said: “It has been wonderful to see the Royal Family support the DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal. The King heard first-hand from aid workers who have recently returned from Gaza, as well as some volunteers and community fundraisers.”
Katie Roxburgh, from Glasgow, who’s helping coordinate Christian Aid’s response in the region met the King this morning. Speaking after the event, Katie added: "It was a privilege to meet him. It was important to tell him about the immense challenges facing people in Gaza. The cold winter months are bringing additional problems, as the lack of sunlight means solar panels which generate electricity don’t work and people living in shelters on the beaches are being battered by waves.
“Access to food is the biggest challenge: there's almost no food available in the markets and anything that's available is too expensive for most people to buy. There’s been no meat, fish or chicken to buy for the last few months and the cheapest vegetable you can find costs a minimum of $15/20 a kilo.
“But what we are doing is supporting people with the limited resources available – such as repairing water wells, using the leaves from date trees for extra shelter and repairing community centres that have been damaged. Christian Aid's approach is always community-led, through local partners, helping people to help themselves."
“The money raised in Scotland will help Oxfam and our partners, despite the extraordinary challenges and risks, provide lifesaving assistance, including clean water and emergency food parcels to people across Gaza and Lebanon. So far, we have supported over a million people in Gaza by rehabilitating damaged water networks, installing toilets, and providing much needed hygiene items, including soap and sanitary pads.
“However, this crisis and our work is far from over, especially with recent warnings of imminent famine in northern Gaza where children are already starving to death or going days without eating.
“We urgently need more funds to enable us to continue our humanitarian work now and scale up our response as access allows so we can meet the huge levels of need we’re witnessing.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here