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 inBuenos Aires (ACBA), including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and thePhilippines, has donated essential items to poor people in the capital city ofArgentina who have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

It is a humane initiative to uphold the solidarity andfriendship between ASEAN and local people, particularly at the time when thepandemic is wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of the poor in Argentina, saidVietnamese 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’smost populous city, the rate even hit 51 percent, the highestnationwide. Children are those hardest hit by the pandemic, with 62.9percent of the total from impoverished families./.

VNA