Colombia
Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo provided details about the plan announced by President Gustavo Petro, to care for Palestinian minors who are victims of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Murillo confirmed that Colombia will receive between 30 and 50 children, to provide them with medical treatment and support. The minors, who have suffered mutilations due to the conflict in Gaza, will be transferred from Egypt along with their family companions, and will remain in Colombia for a period of up to six months.
“The purpose is to be able to bring about 35, 50 boys and girls who have some type of mutilation, who are in Egypt, who were affected by the conflict in Gaza, are in Egypt and who can come with their family companions for a period of up to six months and then return to Egypt,” he said.
Murillo highlighted that he has already had conversations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and Jordan, who will support this program. Also He called on other countries to join the program, providing resources to Colombia or establishing similar initiatives.
“I am working hard, we are doing it directly from the Foreign Ministry with other government institutions so that the program can be implemented quickly because we have boys and girls who need this help,” he added.
Regarding the transportation of children, the chancellor explained: “The design we have today is that Colombia would send a plane. That plane would carry some elements that we already have as support so that they can be entered into the Gaza area. or in refugee areas in Egypt, but we believe that we will have the possibility with the agreements, with the conversations we have with our colleagues in Jordan and Egypt that it can be done and that plane would obviously return with the boys and girls.”
Finally, Murillo added that a technical team of doctors is already working in the necessary conditions to receive the children, who must be between 12 and 15 years old due to the specificities of the prostheses and other treatments they will receive. “There are all the analyzes that have been done very seriously and the purpose, one of the aspects of the program is precisely to transport them,” concluded the chancellor.
