Spain mobilises its field hospital and medical team for humanitarian emergencies in response to the earthquake in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq

2023.2.7

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This emergency medical response team (EMT) is accredited by the WHO and is one of the registered emergency response capabilities of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

Together with Italy and France, Spain is one of only three EU countries to have such a team.

Since its launch in 2018, START has conducted humanitarian missions in Mozambique, Bata (Equatorial Guinea) and was deployed to help provide assistance following the earthquake in Haiti.

In addition to the hospital, Spain will contribute to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) appeal and support the activation of emergency agreements with Spanish NGOs in Syria.

Spain will send the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation's (AECID) STARTSe Team (Equipo Técnico Español de Ayuda y Respuesta en Emergencias) field hospital within the framework of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which is coordinating international aid from EU Member States to alleviate the consequences of the earthquake that has affected Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

The Turkish authorities have issued an appeal for international assistance, the response to which is being coordinated by the Emergency Medical Teams Initiative (EMT) of the WHO, and by the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, code-named "Team Europe". The Spanish offer to deploy the START Team was accepted by the Turkish authorities this morning, 7 February. Preparations for the deployment have already begun and the Team will leave for a location to be defined in the coming days.

In the first moments of an emergency caused by seismic movements the speed of rescue teams is essential to save as many lives of those trapped under the rubble as possible, especially when these types of earthquakes occur at night, when most of the population is at home in densely built-up areas.

The earthquake, measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, took place in the early hours of Sunday morning (3.10 am), with its epicentre in Kahramanmaras in southern Turkey, where large urban centres such as Gaziantep and Adana and cities such as Hatay, Malatya, Kilis, Diyarbakir and Adiyaman are concentrated, containing a population of some 12 million people, including two million Syrian refugees.

From the very first moments of the emergency, the Humanitarian Action Office of the AECID has been in contact with the Directorate General for Civil Protection and European Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the WHO's EMT Initiative, and the Spanish Embassy in Turkey, to keep abreast of the needs of the population most affected by this earthquake. In addition, today, Tuesday 7 February, AECID has organised a first meeting with Spanish regional governments and humanitarian NGOs to coordinate the humanitarian response to the earthquake.

In addition to the START Team with the field hospital, Spain will also contribute to the emergency appeal launched by the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), and will support the emergency activations of Spanish humanitarian NGOs that have emergency agreements with AECID and are currently working in Syria. Support through these mechanisms will be defined in the coming hours, once a more detailed analysis of the needs on the ground has been carried out.

THE START, a field hospital with the emergency equipment

Among its capabilities, the Spanish Technical Emergency Relief and Response Team STARTSe has a level 2 field hospital classified by the WHO on 31 May 2018 (EMT 2) and verified by the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism in January 2019. Level 2 means the ability to perform surgical interventions.

The START Team is also part of the catalogue of resources available under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Commission. In this regard, countries affected by an emergency that accept the deployment of the START team have the guarantee that the Spanish intervention meets the most demanding quality requirements.

The START project has allowed Spain to have its first level 1 health team of professionals belonging to the public health system, ready to be deployed to any corner of the world where a humanitarian emergency occurs within 72 hours, thereby placing AECID at the forefront of European donor agencies in terms of humanitarian response.

The START field hospital will be staffed by more than 70 people, including health professionals, logisticians and staff from AECID's Humanitarian Action Office, which leads and coordinates the team's missions. The hospital has an operating theatre and inpatient capacity for 20 people.

In April 2019, the first deployment of this team took place in Dondo, Mozambique, in response to the Cyclone Idai emergency. In 2021, fourteen START professionals, including health personnel and humanitarian aid experts, were deployed and integrated into the health teams in the city of Bata (Equatorial Guinea) to support them in the task of caring for people injured by the explosion of a powder keg that devastated part of the city.

START water and sanitation experts also took part in a humanitarian mission following the earthquake in Haiti in August 2021 to set up water purification systems and train their teams in the management of emergency responses related to water and sanitation.

Non official translation