Alain Lang; Bram Krieps;
Credit: CGDIS
Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, the Ministry of the Interior and the Grand-Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps have announced that the Grand Duchy is providing additional help to the victims of the earthquake that recently struck Haiti, following a request from the Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) within the framework of the European Civil Protection Mechanism.
Taina Bofferding, Luxembourg's Minister of the Interior, and Franz Fayot, Minister of Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, have dispatched to the scene a team of 2 expert firefighters from the intervention group in charge of humanitarian missions of the Grand-Ducal Corps of fire and emergency services (CGDIS) and 3 “emergency.lu” satellite communication systems.
The team, which left on Monday 23 August 2021 from Paris, will be responsible for restoring telecommunications services in the region, in order to facilitate the work of humanitarian organisations already there. The initial duration of this mission is fixed at a fortnight.
As of 18 August 2021, a volunteer firefighter, a member of the same intervention group in charge of humanitarian missions of CGDIS, had already been deployed to be part of one of the United Nations teams of experts in charge of assessment and coordination in disasters and emergencies.
The intervention group in charge of civil security and humanitarian missions of the Grand-Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps (Humanitarian Intervention Team - HIT) intervenes outside the territory of Luxembourg in the event of very serious calamitous events on government order, either at the request of the country or countries concerned, or in the context of international assistance.
emergency.lu is a mobile satellite telecommunications platform whose primary objective is to restore the means of communication (internet, voice) after a disaster, to support the coordination efforts of humanitarian organisations in the field and thus to help save lives in humanitarian emergencies. This is a public-private partnership formed between the Luxembourg government and three Luxembourg companies (SES Telecom Services, Hitec Luxembourg and Luxembourg Air Ambulance SA). Luxembourg provides emergency.lu services as a free global public good to the humanitarian community. The same services are offered to the people and governments of affected countries.
The European Civil Protection Mechanism was created in 2001, with the objective of strengthening cooperation in civil protection between EU Member States and the 6 other countries participating in the Mechanism, with a view to improving prevention, preparedness and disaster response. When a country, in Europe or elsewhere, is overwhelmed in its response capacity by the scale of a disaster, it can request assistance through the mechanism. The European Commission plays a key role in coordinating disaster response across the world, and contributes at least 75% of the transport and / or operational costs of deployment missions.
