Slovakia will send humanitarian aid to people in South Ossetia affected by the armed conflict in the Caucasus. Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Kubis decided to earmark SKK 2 million (EUR 66,388) from the ministry's Agency for International Development Cooperation - Slovak Aid for a humanitarian consignment for South Ossetians. The Foreign Ministry will secure this aid in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Within the IOM project, it will provide expedited aid to 250 affected families from South Ossetia. "This concerns about 1,500 people," reads a statement provided to SITA by Foreign Ministry spokesman Jan Skoda.
In the middle of August, Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Kubis decided to dispatch expedited Slovak humanitarian aid of SKK 5.6 million (EUR 185,886) to Georgia, for which the nationalistic member of the ruling coalition, the Slovak National Party, criticized him. Tents, sleeping bags, blankets, field beds, clothing and medical supplies were dispatched to Georgia. SNS Deputy Chairwoman Anna Belousovova criticized Mr. Kubis's decision: "It is an indisputable fact that the inhabitants of South Ossetia have become a target of Georgian aggression," she told SITA. Ms. Belousova underscored that in South Ossetia ten towns and villages were razed to the ground in the Georgian attack, in which 2,000 people died. The SNS deputy chairwoman claimed that people from South Ossetia need this aid more.