In a humanitarian gesture, Portuguese and Saudi Al-Nassr star Cristiano Ronaldo has sent a plane of care items to the victims affected by the earthquake in Syria and Turkey.
Earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, with a magnitude of 7.7 and 7.6 Richter scale, killing more than 50,000 people, injuring tens of thousands, and displacing thousands more in the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes.
The aid sent from the Portuguese star includes tents, medical facilities, pillows, blankets, beds, milk, baby food and food packages, according to a report by the British newspaper Daily Mail.
As per media reports, there is “hope that Ronaldo’s initiative will encourage other sports personalities to follow his example in the coming days and weeks.”
As per Marca, this donation is valued at 350,000 dollars (Rs 2,86,09,875).
This humanitarian stance is not the first on the part of Cristiano Ronaldo towards those affected in Turkey and Syria, as he was the first to participate in the campaign launched by the Turkish Merih Demiral, the current Atalanta defender, who teamed up with the “Don” in Juventus.
Demiral published a tweet on February 7, 2023, in which he wrote in Turkish, “I spoke with Cristiano Ronaldo and he told me that he was very sad about what happened in Turkey.”
The former Juventus defender added, “We will auction off the signed Ronaldo shirt in my collection, and all the proceeds will be used in the areas affected by the earthquake.”
Days later, on February 9, 2023, Demiral succeeded in selling Cristiano’s shirt, along with his former Juventus colleagues, Argentine Paulo Dybala and Italian Leonardo Bonci, for a large sum.
Demiral tweeted, “In the auction that we started, I found 3 shirts of their owners. The shirts of Ronaldo, Bonucci and Dybala, which were offered in the auction, were sold for a total amount of 5 million Turkish liras (about 266 thousand dollars).”
He added, “All proceeds from the sale will be used to help the people in the earthquake areas.”
Earlier, Ronaldo paid for a child’s brain surgery at a cost of 83,000 dollars (Rs 67,85,831) and donated 165,000 dollars (Rs 1,34,89,905) to help fund a cancer centre in his native Portugal.
Ronaldo also donated one million and 200,000 (Rs 1,63,51,400) dollars to Portuguese hospitals during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
