ASEAN nations offer aid to pandemic-hit people in Argentina

Ambassadors of ASEAN nations hand over the donations to Buenos Aires authority on July 5. (Photo: VNA)

Buenos Aires (VNA) – The ASEAN Committee in Buenos Aires (ACBA), including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, has donated essential items to poor people in the capital city of Argentina who have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACBA on July 5 handed over donations of over 200 packets of powdered milk and 100kg of cereals together with noodles, flour, canned fish and vegetables, and blankets and clothes for children to the authority of Buenos Aires at the Embassy of Vietnam.

It is a humane initiative to uphold the solidarity and friendship between ASEAN and local people, particularly at the time when the pandemic is wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of the poor in Argentina, said Vietnamese Ambassador Duong Quoc Thanh.

As a result of the economic fallout caused by COVID-19, Argentina’s poverty rate reached 42 percent. In Buenos Aires – the country’s most populous city, the rate even hit 51 percent, the highest nationwide. Children are those hardest hit by the pandemic, with 62.9 percent of the total from impoverished families./.

VNA