Medical experts and emergency workers from the UAE have arrived in Afghanistan to bolster a Red Crescent hospital, provide earthquake rescue expertise and train Afghans. The 56 staff, including an earthquake response team from Abu Dhabi Police's paramedic service, are at Jarikar hospital, about 70km from the capital, Kabul. The doctors and emergency staff are contributing medical supplies and training to Afghan medical professionals and volunteers.
Police officials have provided sensors that detect buried earthquake survivors, as well as a mobile oxygen generator. The team also brought sniffer dogs, four rescue vehicles and an ambulance. Lt Col Mohammed al Nuaimi, chairman of the technical section of Abu Dhabi Police's rapid intervention team, is leading the group. The mission will build on Lt Col Nuaimi's earthquake recovery missions in Pakistan in 2005 and Indonesia in 2006 and 2007.
The team's field readiness was tested soon after their arrival when they assisted with several intensive care cases in the Red Crescent hospital. They also helped local emergency workers to assist residents left homeless by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake early last week. No one was killed in the tremor. The UAE deployed a humanitarian and military force to Afghanistan two years after a US-led coalition toppled the Taliban. Foreign forces, now led by Nato, provide assistance to the Kabul government.
UAE forces are believed to be operating in the southern province of Oruzgan, an unstable area with a resurgent Taliban. Mullah Omar, the former leader of the Taliban, is believed to have been born there. @Email:mbradley@thenational.ae