HIT member is seen off by Luxembourg's Minister of Home Affairs, the CGDIS Director General, the CGDIS Director on duty and the Group Leader of HIT;
Credit: CGDIS
Luxembourg's Ministry of Home Affairs, the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs and the Grand Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps (CGDIS) have announced the deployment of a member of the latter's Humanitarian Intervention Team (HIT) to Turkey as part of a humanitarian mission following the earthquake of Monday 6 February 2023.
According to the authorities, the individual in question is an expert in information and communication technology (ICT) who, having been deployed to Turkey on Tuesday evening, will provide support to the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) emergency response team in the ICT field, as part of the International Humanitarian Partnership (IHP) network (of which the CGDIS is a member). These teams, which are deployed in the first phase of an emergency, notably assess international relief needs and coordinate support and relief efforts on site.
The HIT intervenes outside the territory of Luxembourg in the event of very serious calamitous events, by order of the government, either at the request of the country or countries concerned, or within the framework of international assistance. UNDAC teams are managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a long-standing partner of Luxembourg's development cooperation programme, and are deployed on a short-term basis anywhere in the world to help coordinate the international humanitarian response and carry out rapid assessments.
Along with the CGDIS expert, a first device of the "emergency.lu" mobile satellite telecommunications platform will be deployed in order to support the restoration of telecommunications services in the region. The primary objective of emergency.lu, as explained by the authorities, is to restore the means of communication after a disaster, to support the coordination efforts of humanitarian organisations in the field and thus contribute to saving lives in humanitarian emergencies. It 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 population and governments of affected countries.
