Turkish ministry to set up second hospital in Somalia

The Turkish Ministry of Health will set up a second field hospital in Somalia within the scope of Turkey’s assistance to the famine-stricken country.

The second hospital will be resistant to severe climate conditions and be set up near the former parliamentary building which now houses shelters. The Ministry of Health’s Somalia team’s head Dr. Akif Saatçioğlu said Nov. 5 the second hospital would be larger than the first one that the ministry previously set up in the region.

Saatçioğlu said the second hospital would be located in one of the best places of the capital Mogadishu and would be close both to shelters and the city center. The hospital will be open to patients soon, he added. With two field hospitals and one mobile hospital, Turkey will be able to help people in a very large part of the capital.

Somalia is facing one of the worst droughts of the past 60 years. The epicenter of the drought lies on the three-way border shared by Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, a nomadic region where families heavily depend on the health of their livestock. Uganda and Djibouti have also been hit by the disaster. Tens of thousands of people have so far been displaced due to the humanitarian situation in the region.

Meanwhile, Turkish Ambassador to Mogadishu Cemalettin Kani Torun has wished peace and development for Somalia during the Eid al-Adha religious holiday. Torun said yesterday activities of Turkish aid associations became more intensive following the August visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Mogadishu.

Torun said aid associations had collected donations for Somalians for the religious holiday, and the meat of sacrificed livestock was being delivered in Mogadishu and southern parts of the country. The Turkish Embassy to Mogadishu was opened Nov. 1.