Malta sent more than €500,000 worth of aid to embattled Tripoli yesterday.
Four hundred tonnes of food and 250 tonnes of medicine were loaded onto the ship Al Ensitisar, which left for Tripoli in the afternoon, according to a spokesman for the Malta-based NGO Igo-Aid foundation.
This is the same large fishing vessel that had been instrumental in sending aid to Misurata some months back when Malta was the only lifeline to the worst hit city in the Libyan conflict.
“We need to keep the aid coming. There will never be enough,” said Mario Debono, one of the businessmen involved in the NGO, as he appealed for businesses and individuals to contribute.
“Malta is the closest country to Tripoli and we have the stocks they need, so we can be the first to react to the appeals,” he said. About 15 doctors (not Maltese) are also on the boat and are expected to go straight to the Tripoli hospital, which has come under increasing pressure as the fighting in the capital continues. International news reports have in the past days focused on the desperate situation developing due to the lack of resources and an influx of casualties. The Maltese government donated 45 pallets of medicines, bandages and other medical and surgical equipment, worth €130,000, the spokesman for Igo-Aid said. The boat is also carrying every oxygen cylinder the foundation could lay its hands on in Malta, in light of serious shortages in Tripoli.
Donations also came from the Qatari government and from various international businesses, from which the foundation has long been collecting aid.
The boat left the Grand Harbour at 4 p.m. and is expected in Tripoli this morning. Although the port has been a volatile area since the rebel uprising reached Tripoli, it is now believed to be stable.
Igo-Aid was set up in Malta in February by a number of Libyan and Maltese volunteers, mostly businessmen, and has been shipping humanitarian aid to a number of points in Libya throughout the crisis.
The Civil Protection Department is on a drive to collect water, tinned food, powdered baby milk, flour and sugar at its Humanitarian Aid Section at Shipwright Wharf, Marsa. The warehouse will be open between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. tomorrow and on Sunday.
CPD director Patrick Murgo has appealed for generosity.
Money can be donated on the following accounts: HSBC 0780 0239 1050, Bank of Valletta 4001 8758 443, Lombard Bank 0144 0800 001, APS Bank 2000 0889 551 and Banif Bank 0008 3224 181. The Nationalist Party said yesterday it fully supported the Libyan people in their historic cause and was proud of the fact that Malta was the fourth EU country to recognise the National Transitional Council. “Our country served and will continue to serve as a point of shelter and solidarity through the humanitarian assistance it is offering the Libyan people and the council,” the PN said.
Malta has also been helping out with evacuating foreigners still struck in Tripoli and this month helped return more than 600 Libyans stranded in Tunisia back to Misurata and Benghazi.