By Faten Omar

KUWAIT: Media personality Abdullah Boftain, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Kuwait Times and Managing Partner of Kuwait News, participated in the livestreaming of the "Kuwait by Your Side" fundraising campaign on Kuwait Television (KTV) on Saturday for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

The ministry of social affairs, in cooperation with the ministries of foreign affairs and information, organized the national fundraising drive. The campaign began with a live broadcast on KTV at noon and ended at midnight. The fundraising drive collected more than KD 20 million from more than 129,000 donors.

The fundraising campaign came in implementation of the directives of HH the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and HH the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah within the framework of the humanitarian role of Kuwait to help victims of this disaster, which resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries.

From the first moments of the earthquake, Kuwait rushed to support the Syrian and Turkish peoples in facing their ordeal, to provide all support needed by collecting donations to support them and mitigate the moral and material effects of the earthquake. More than 30,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria last Monday.

Workers in Turkey and Syria are still trying to pull survivors from the rubble and there have been some harrowing stories of success, and thousands of rescue workers are scouring flattened neighborhoods despite freezing weather that has deepened the hardship of millions now in desperate need of aid.

Since the earthquake occurred, 16 Arab countries have officially announced the establishment of air bridges and the provision of urgent relief and medical aid to support Turkey and Syria, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia, Palestine, Iraq, Mauritania, Sudan and Oman.