A Sputnik correspondent in Latakia reported that a ton of medical supplies, baby food and other essentials collected by the Sputnik team in Moscow were delivered to the General Directorate of the Maternity and Children Hospital in Latakia.
Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Churov, deputy director of medical services at the Khmeimim Air Base, accompanied the shipment. In an interview with Sputnik, he noted that the humanitarian aid would be distributed to Syrian hospitals according to their needs.
"The aid to the maternity hospital and the children's ward is part of Russia's ongoing efforts to help Syria in the aftermath of the earthquake. We will send the necessary aid not only to the Latakia hospital, but also to hospitals in other affected regions of Syria. Everything will depend on the requests," he added.
For his part, Ahmed Ghazi Al-Farra, Director General of the Maternity and Children Hospital in Latakia, stressed that this was not the first time the Russian military has delivered aid to the hospital.
"Russia has helped our hospital a lot by providing medicines and equipment. Even now, after the earthquake. We have submitted to our colleagues in the medical service of the Khmeimim Air Base a specific list of medicines that we urgently need, and they have provided them to us. We thank the Russians for their support," he said.
On February 6, parts of Turkiye and Syria were hit by magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes and a series of aftershocks that caused massive destruction. In Turkiye, the disaster claimed the lives of over 46,000 people. The Syrian Health Ministry has said that the final death toll from the earthquake in the government-controlled part of Syria has reached 1,414 people, but the United Nations has estimated the total number of deaths in the country at 8,500.