WASHINGTON: King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief) Supervisor General Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah has said Saudi Arabia provided $133 billion in humanitarian aid between 1996 and 2024, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Thursday.
Speaking during a meeting hosted by the National Council on US-Arab Relations on addressing international humanitarian challenges, he noted that one of the most pressing challenges in humanitarian efforts is the escalating crises in countries like Lebanon, Palestine, and Sudan.
These challenges are aggravated by soaring administrative and logistical costs and a significant shortage of funding sources.
He added that the UN Humanitarian Response Plan for 2024 has secured only 37.5% of the basic funds, amounting to US $18 billion, while the actual need exceeds US $49 billion.
Al Rabeeah added that the effects of climate change can trigger natural disasters like earthquakes and floods.
He said that since its establishment in 2015, KSrelief has completed 3,105 projects in 104 countries, totalling more than US $7.1 billion in value. These projects span various vital sectors, with Yemen receiving the largest share 63.12% of the centre’s total assistance amounting to over US $4.5 billion.
He stressed that KSrelief has initiated 1,017 projects to support women across the world, benefiting more than 153 million women with a total value exceeding US $674 million. He also noted that the welfare of children is a key priority in humanitarian efforts.
He noted that KSrelief has carried out 953 projects dedicated to children worth more than US $909 million, benefiting over 181 million young individuals.
He added that KSrelief has launched several programmes to support the Yemeni people, including the Masam project, which has cleared over 468,000 landmines, and programs for providing prosthetic limbs and reintegrating children formerly associated with armed conflict into society.
Al Rabeeah further said that Saudi Arabia is among the leading countries hosting refugees, with an estimated total of more than 1.1 million refugees in the Kingdom. He said these include over 561,000 Yemeni refugees, 262,000 Syrian refugees, and 269,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
On recent assistance provided to some countries, he said that Saudi Arabia responded immediately after the outbreak of the crisis in the Gaza Strip, with total aid provided to the Palestinian people reaching US $186 million. He stated that Saudi Arabia established an air bridge with 54 aircraft and a sea bridge with eight ships, and it also airdropped specialized food aid for those affected in Gaza to mitigate the impact of Israeli forces closing border crossings.
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Al Rabeeah said that the Kingdom allocated US $120 million in aid for Sudan during its current crisis, establishing an air bridge with 13 aircraft and a sea bridge with 31 ships. Also, the Kingdom committed US $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine to alleviate the suffering of those impacted by the country’s humanitarian crisis, with an air bridge of 21 aircraft.
He said the Kingdom also launched the Saudi Sama’a Volunteer Program for Cochlear Implantation and Hearing Rehabilitation in Turkiye, which focused on auditory rehabilitation and cochlear implants for
The supervisor general also referred the Saudi Conjoined Twins Program for separating Siamese twins, noting that the program has reviewed 143 cases from 26 countries across three continents and successfully carried out 61 operations to separate conjoined and parasitic twins, all of which were successful.
