Charity loads food aid on to barge in Cyprus headed for Gaza

Charity workers loaded relief supplies bound for Gaza on to a barge in Cyprus on Saturday as part of an international effort to launch a maritime corridor to a Palestinian population on the brink of famine.
The European Commission had said a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza could start operating as early as this weekend in a pilot project run by an international charity and financed by the UAE.
The Open Arms, a salvage vessel owned by a Spanish NGO and more accustomed to rescuing migrants at sea, was moored at a port in the coastal Cyprus town of Larnaca, 210 miles northwest of Gaza.
It will tow a barge with 200 tonnes of food sourced by charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) and mostly funded by the UAE. The timing of its departure from Cyprus was unclear.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides, whose administration lobbied for months to establish the corridor, told journalists: “In the next 24 hours the vessel will depart from Larnaca. I can’t specify when, for security reasons.”