Spain will send the field hospital of the START team
(Spanish Technical Aid Response Team) of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) within the framework of the European Civil Protection Mechanism, which is coordinating the international aid from EU Member States to alleviate the consequences of the earthquake that has affected Türkiye, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
The Turkish authorities have issued a call for international aid. The response is being coordinated by the EMT Initiative (Emergency Medical Teams) of the World Health Organization (WHO) and by the European Civil Protection Mechanism, known as “Team Europe”. The Spanish offer to deploy the START Team has been accepted by the Turkish authorities this morning, 7 February. The preparations for the deployment have already begun and the Team will depart towards a location that will be decided on in the coming days.
At the outset of an emergency originating in seismic movements, the speed of the rescue teams is fundamental in order to save as many lives as possible of people trapped beneath the rubble; more so when this type of seismic movement occurs at night, while most people are at home, in highly built-up areas.
The earthquake, which registered 7.4 on the Richter Scale, took place early on Monday morning (3.10 am), with the epicentre in Kahramanmaras, in southern Türkiye, where there are large urban centres like Gaziantep and Adana and cities like Hatay, Malatya, Kilis, Diyarbakir and Adiyaman, where a population of some 12 million people live, including 2 million Syrian refugees.
The Humanitarian Action Office of AECID has been in contact, since the outbreak of the emergency, with the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the WHO EMT Initiative and the Spanish Embassy in Türkiye to keep abreast of the needs of the population most affected by this earthquake. Furthermore, today, 7 February, AECID has organised its first meeting with the autonomous regions and Spanish humanitarian NGOs to coordinate the humanitarian response to the earthquake.
Furthermore, and in addition to the START Team with its field hospital, Spain will contribute to the emergency call issued by the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and will support the emergency activities of Spanish humanitarian NGOs that have emergency agreements in force with AECID and are currently working in Syria. Support via these mechanisms shall be defined over the coming hours after making a more detailed analysis of the needs on the ground.
START – A FIELD HOSPITAL WITH AN EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM
Among its capabilities,
the Spanish Technical Aid Response Team (START) has a field hospital classified as level 2 by the WHO on 31 May 2018 (EMT 2) and verified by the European Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Commission in January 2019. Level 2 means the capacity to perform surgical interventions.
Furthermore, the START Team forms part of the list of resources available under the European Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Commission. Accordingly, countries affected by an emergency that accept the deployment of the START Team have the guarantee that Spain’s intervention complies with the strictest quality requirements.
The START project means that, for the first time, Spain has a first-class health team of professionals belonging to the public health system, ready to be deployed within a maximum of 72 hours to any corner of the world where a humanitarian emergency takes place, thus positioning AECID at the head of European donor agencies in terms of humanitarian response.
The START field hospital will be manned by more than 70 people, including health professionals, logistical support and staff from the Humanitarian Action Office of AECID, which heads up and coordinates the team’s missions. This hospital has an operating room and capacity to admit up to 20 patients.
This team was first deployed in April 2019 in Dondo (Mozambique) to provide a response to the emergency caused by Cyclone Idai. In 2021, 14 START professionals, including health workers and experts in humanitarian aid, were deployed and integrated in the health teams in the city of Bata (Equatorial Guinea) to provide support in caring for those injured by the explosion of a powder keg that devastated part of the city.
Furthermore, START water and sanitation experts took part in a humanitarian mission following the earthquake that hit Haiti in August 2021 to install and start up water purification systems and to train their teams in the management of emergency responses related to water and sanitation.
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Spanish Humanitarian Action
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation (MAUC), is the leading management body of Spanish Cooperation. Dedicated to the fight against poverty and to sustainable human development, humanitarian action is one of its main priorities.
The Humanitarian Action Office (OAH) of AECID, set up in 2007, is in charge of the management and implementation of Spanish official humanitarian action, based on the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.
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