UAE flies aid to Syria to help battle coronavirus

The UAE has sent medical aid to war-torn Syria to combat the novel coronavirus, in the first such delivery since their leaders broke a nine-year silence, the Syrian Red Crescent said Monday.

The delivery late Sunday included medicine, ventilators and disinfectant, the Red Crescent and state news agency SANA said.

It comes after President Bashar al-Assad and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan spoke on the phone in March for the first time since Syria’s war erupted in 2011.

Prince Mohammed assured Assad of “the support of the UAE and its willingness to help the Syrian people” combat Covid-19, he tweeted.

The UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018, seven years after severing diplomatic ties.

Syria’s government has announced 2,703 cases of Covid-19 and 109 deaths in areas under its control.

But medics and residents say the real number of cases in the war-battered country is likely to be much higher.