Throughout its history, Saudi Arabia has played a prominent humanitarian and relief role towards various countries and people in distress worldwide, sensing the importance of alleviating human suffering wherever they are [located]. These efforts culminated in the Kingdom’s establishment of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) to be an international beacon in the field of humanitarian action.
KSrelief celebrates World Health Day, which falls on April 7 of each year, due to the great importance of this sector in preserving and protecting human life.
Since its establishment in 2015, KSrelief has implemented 433 relief and humanitarian projects in the fields of health, nutrition, water, and environmental sanitation, in 49 countries around the world, with a total value of more than USD 849 million, benefiting more than 322 million people.
In the health sector, KSrelief provided medical and pharmaceutical assistance, initiated the establishment and rehabilitation of health centers and hospitals in the targeted countries, and contributed to combating the spread of diseases and epidemics, including supporting international efforts in confronting the Corona pandemic by providing anti-virus vaccines and necessary medical devices and equipment. KSrelief also secured oxygen and ventilators in hospitals and health centers to meet the needs of many countries with fragile medical systems, in addition to securing medicines, medical supplies, intravenous solutions, and dialysis solutions in the countries in need.
The center also supported a project to operate prosthetic limb centers in Yemen by providing physical rehabilitation services for people with special needs, providing high-quality prosthetic limbs for the injured, training local Human Resources on prosthetic limb manufacturing techniques, and building the capacities of Yemeni health institutions to ensure the localization and sustainability of services.
In water and environmental sanitation projects, the center provided sources of potable and safe-to-drink water for human use, in addition to treating wastewater, reducing the spread of epidemic diseases, and promoting personal hygiene to create a clean and safe environment in several beneficiary countries, in addition to its emergency response to combating Dengue fever in Yemen by spraying pesticides, and the clearing and draining of swamps.
The center also implemented nutrition projects in many beneficiary countries, including combating malnutrition for children, and pregnant and lactating women and preparing many health facilities to treat malnutrition, in addition to maintaining the provision of basic nutrition services to reduce the death rate in some countries.
Moreover, the Saudi Program for the Separation of Conjoined Twins was able over the past 32 years to perform successfully 55 separation operations by operating on 127 Siamese twins from 23 countries.
These relief and humanitarian efforts are attributed to the unlimited support and great interest in humanitarian work from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and HRH the Crown Prince
Source: Saudi Press Agency