2023-09-13 05:56:08
France is organizing to help Libya, hit by a natural disaster which left thousands dead. Paris will therefore send a field hospital within “24 to 48 hours” to bring relief to populations hit hard by floods in the east of the country, the French authorities announced on Tuesday. A military transport plane will also be deployed to bring equipment.
“The President of the Republic has decided to send emergency teams from Civil Security and a field hospital”, i.e. around “fifty civil and military personnel who can treat 500 people per day”, indicated the Elysée. “The first staff will leave this evening (Tuesday) so that everything is operational within 48 hours,” said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on his X account.
France ready to “search for isolated people”
Earlier in the day, the spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne-Claire Legendre, assured that France stood ready to send “emergency aid” and to “respond to requests addressed to it by the Libyan authorities.
“All options are on the table” for additional help, in particular to “find isolated people,” noted a presidential advisor.
Nearly 10,000 missing
The floods in Libya have caused a considerable number of deaths, which could number in the thousands, and 10,000 missing, an official from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Tuesday.
The results nevertheless remain uncertain, indicated Tamer Ramadan, during the regular UN press briefing in Geneva. “We do not have final figures” on the number of deaths at the moment, he said, stressing that “the number of missing is close to 10,000”. Around a hundred dual nationals are recorded in Libya, including less than ten in the east of the country, and “none is in difficulty”, according to the Elysée.
#floods #left #thousands #dead #France #sends #field #hospital