Mystery donor gives $10,000 to Bam mission

AN ANONYMOUS Limassol man yesterday donated $10,000 to the Cyprus branch of the Doctors of the World organisation after hearing a radio appeal for help to send an emergency mission to Iran to aid the Bam earthquake victims.

The man contacted CyBC after hearing the appeal by Dr Eleni Theocharous, and she heard about the mysterious donation later while she was in theatre conducting an operation.

Theocharous could only describe her surprise at “all our phones ringing off their hooks for the first time”. She said she was still also hoping to receive money the government is considering giving the organisation. But the money from the mystery donor “has now enabled us to leave as soon as this Saturday”.

While Theocharous was speaking live on radio, the Bishop of Larnaca, Chrysostomos, called the station and offered to finance the travel costs to Iran for Theocharous’ group.
“After I spoke with the bishop, I then spoke on radio with the Minister of Finance, Marcos Kyprianou. He said he would discuss in cabinet later in the day if the government could donate part of the one hundred thousand pounds that was to be sent to Iran anyway. Hopefully they will give it to us,” Theocharous said.

Maria Siakalli, Vice-president of the organisation, said that according to CyBC, the same anonymous man had previously donated a large sum of money in the same way and that he wanted to remain nameless.

“The radio station received the call at nine-thirty in the morning from a man who asked for our organisation’s bank account number, and he admitted he was going to donate ten thousand dollars. He did not say why he was donating it or who he was, but the radio station knows he is from Limassol,” she said.

Siakalli said that the donation would help to provide enough funds to buy medicine and medical equipment to help the suffering and sick victims of the Bam earthquake, “so this new year will bring health and happiness to the people”.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.