Damascus, SANA-The Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management, Raed Al-Saleh, announced on Sunday that civil defense and firefighting teams in Syria, with the help of teams from brotherly countries, managed to stop the spread of fire on all axes in the northern countryside of Lattakia province.
Al-Saleh clarified in a tweet on the X platform that “the current situation regarding the fires in Lattakia countryside is moving towards control and then moving to comprehensive cooling operations.”
Earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a rapid intervention program in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), to support those affected people by the fires that destroyed an area of 15,000 hectares, according to statements by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Amjad Badr.
Regional and international solidarity
Brotherly and friendly countries helped in extinguishing the fires, as teams from the Jordanian Civil Defense headed to Lattakia province to participate in efforts to extinguish forest fires from the first days of their outbreak.
The State of Qatar has joined the efforts to help extinguish the wildfires in Lattakia province, where Minister al-Saleh expressed his thanks and appreciation for sending five Qatari aircraft carrying firefighting helicopters, fire engines, and 138 personnel to support efforts to extinguish the forest fires in the Latakia countryside.
Turkey, in turn, took the initiative to send firefighting teams that included two helicopters and 11 vehicles, and two Lebanese Air Force helicopters headed from Qlayaat Airport – Akkar, to participate in extinguishing the fires, based on Syrian-Lebanese coordination, so that Lebanon’s initiative would be added to the initiatives of Turkey, Amman, and Doha.
A response that reflects cooperation
This regional and international response to help extinguish the fires reflected actual cooperation incidents that were clearly evident after Minister al-Saleh communicated with the European Union and requested its support, so that the Chargé d’Affaires of the European Union Mission to Syria, Michael Unmacht, in turn, affirmed the EU’s readiness to support the efforts made in this regard.
The European Union’s assistance was also demonstrated by the activation of the Copernicus system to support efforts to combat the fires, the confirmation by the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Adam Abdel Mawla, that United Nations teams were conducting urgent assessments to determine the extent of the disaster in the Lattakia countryside and urgent humanitarian needs, and his expression of the United Nations’ readiness to deploy an inter-agency mission in Lattakia in coordination with the authorities and partners to further assess the situation and explore ways of immediate, long-term support.
Fedaa
