A military C-130 cargo plane left Athens on July 21 with the first dispatch of humanitarian aid for Lebanon through Cyprus' Larnaca airport.

The aid was shipped the same day on a Greek tank-landing vessel to Beirut.
The aid consignment included nine tons of medical supplies, bedding and tents requested by the Lebanese government from the European Union.

Deputy Foreign Minister Stylianidis stressed that the Foreign Ministry had sped to meet the Lebanese request as soon as this was passed on to the EU member-states.
"Hellenic Aid mobilized all the NGOs involved in humanitarian aid and the appropriate ministries," he noted, while thanking the three aid organizations - the Red Cross, Medecins du Monde and Doctors of the Heart - for their immediate response.
The Minister also conveyed his thanks to the Greek health ministry, which had supplied 20,000 doses of antibiotics, the defense ministry for providing the plane and the Athens municipality for arranging transportation of the aid consignment to Elefsina military airport.
The medical supplies also included blood plasma, IV drips, catheters, sedatives and anti-diarrhea medication.

On July 24th another dispatch of aid was sent in on a Greek Air Force plane, carrying 13,5 tons of humanitarian aid, mostly bedding, tents and food, offered by the Greek armed forces and the Greek Red Cross. The dispatch is to be followed by others in a wide-scale operation organized by the Foreign Ministry in cooperation with the national defense ministry.

The first aid consignment consisted of:

Two tones of medicine, medical supplies and tents collected by Doctors of the Heart; Two thousand blankets and 50 eight-person tents donated by the Red Cross and 100 items of bedding from Medicins du Monde; six thousand human doses of antibiotics (out of 20,000 in total) offered by the health ministry; and medical various supplies and 29,800 units of varied pharmaceuticals offered by the Greek Air Force.

Athens is in constant contact with the Greek Embassies in Beirut and Nicosia to bring the aid to Lebanon and with the European Commission, which has announced that it will send €5.0 million in humanitarian aid and will contribute with any means at its disposal to the first phase of supplying humanitarian aid and the second phase of Lebanon's reconstruction.

Source: Press Office of the Embassy of Greece

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