Cypriot doctors on Gaza mercy mission

DOCTORS of the World-Cyprus has sent two teams of physicians to the Gaza Strip and the Iranian town of Bam, recently reduced to rubble by a devastating earthquake.
Headed by Eleni Theocharous, the team of surgeons visiting Gaza will be carrying out approximately 100 operations on Palestinian children with various birth defects.

The doctors will be taking with them £10,000 worth of medicine, and will be operating at the Red Crescent hospital in Gaza.

Accompanying the doctors will be a delegation of the Green Party, which is sponsoring the project. In addition to providing medical and humanitarian assistance, the Cypriot mission will be planting eucalyptus trees at the Wadi Gaza wetlands, where pollution has reached an alarming extent.
The plan is eventually to create a children’s play park at the site, which already has been named “Park of Cyprus”.

The visit turned controversial at one point, when the Cypriot delegates claimed they were unjustifiably delayed at an Israeli checkpoint bordering Gaza; they are scheduled to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during their visit.

Meanwhile last week another group of four Cypriot doctors have departed for the Iranian town of Bam, to provide medical care to survivors of the destructive earthquake. The team was transporting 100kg of medicine, such as antibiotics and painkillers. This first delegation to Bam will investigate the extent of the problem and will be followed by a second, larger one.

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.