Servicemen Offering Humanitarian Aid
(Militaires humanitaires)

SYLVIE BULLO writes about men in uniform giving humanitarian aid whenever it is as required

Go where mankind calls you' is their motto, and off they go, sent by the French government, to save human lives and to offer their help. They are all in the Armed Forces and they are involved in humanitarian aid. Turkey, like many other countries, has not forgotten them.

'I will never forget that moment, the look on the face of that little 11-year-old girl brought out of that hell. I couldn't exactly describe it but it was a moment of intense emotion, seeing that father finding his daughter again after such terrible trials.' Sergeant Major Maille, a non-commissioned transmission officer of Civil Defence, was one of the French servicemen come to help the Turkish people who, last August, had suffered from a terrible earthquake. Turkey, Rwanda, Taiwan, Greece, Cameroon, the Honduras, Albania, Kosovo ... the examples are legion. Wherever the earth gets angry, wherever a catastrophe occurs or where war threatens, doctors, nurses, first-aid workers, rescue dogs and psychiatrists come and bring their help. Unlike NGOs which work freelance, they always and only act on orders from the French government.

'The humanitarian mission of the French army is a vocation which goes back to the Sixties. At the time, we had a system organised in modules, adapted to the kind of catastrophe, the nature of the epidemic and, of course, the needs of the locals. It was very difficult to manage and to implement and so it was gradually abandoned in favour of Airborne Surgical Units,' Doctor-in-charge Laurent, from the Army Health Department, explains. Of the five existing units, one is always on alert 24 hours a day everyday of the year. Each unit is made up of two surgeons, an anaesthetist, five nurses, three stretcher bearers and an administrative assistant, and, as soon as one team has set off, another one is placed on alert. 'I would say of these units that they are our humanitarian missile: efficient, fast and light (just over three tonnes of material), they are able to react quickly in the face of an emergency or a serious event,' he goes on. On 17th August, at three o'clock in the morning, the earth trembled in Turkey. There were already reports of 22,000 deaths, 59,000 wounded and 40,000 missing. On 21st August, the French government launched the 'Mission of Medical Assistance in Turkey' and sent a humanitarian aid unit on the spot. In agreement with the local authorities, a place was found to set up this country hospital. On 22nd August, it was operational.

This team came to reinforce the servicemen of the Civil Defence. The latter come under the Ministry of the Interior. These firemen had already located the first bodies and pulled them out from beneath the rubble as well as carrying out the most urgent surgical operations. 'We have been on site for about 16 hours. Any chance of saving Kadir's hand seems vain. As he is suffering agony, the decision to amputate his hand seems irremediable. The team is extremely upset but they realise that it is the only way to get the casualty out of the rubble,' Sergeant Major Rahal recounts. The catastrophe is so vast that Turkish doctors and French first aid units are unable to cope. They need extra help from the Airborne Surgical Units, a hospital service and a support group. 'The teams from the Civil Defence Department perfectly complement those from the army, reputed for their well-tried logistics and their great ability to react fast. Just like them, we always intervene after receiving a request for international aid, and, three hours after being given the mission order by the Ministries of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs, we have to have reached the nearest airport. Depending on the kind of event, a Reconnaissance and Evaluation unit, an Aeromobile Catastrophe Intervention Detachment, rescue dogs or a Rapid Medical Intervention Civil Defence Unit set off,' Head Doctor Viala, who has been on site for 20 years, explains. All the teams work in very close collaboration and without any respite in the emergency, and the only purpose is to save lives. An Airborne Surgical Unit can perform about 15 surgical operations a day, thanks to a self-sufficiency of 48 hours. 'But we always work with local doctors. It is important that they should be able to provide a medical follow-up to the operated patients after we leave and it is also important for the local population to trust their own doctors. Medical humanitarian aid also implies that,' head doctor Viala goes on.

These men arrive in a country at its own request and they leave it when they are asked to. 'We are not there to interfere in a country's affairs, only to give it our help. It is true that sometimes we insist a little to stay longer if we really believe that we can still help. On that score, I think that the French media have deformed the position of the Turkish authorities a little. They have not shown any aggressiveness at all towards us and we did not feel any pressure from them to leave their country,' Dr. Viala considers. 'One sentence will always remain engraved in my memory. It is something a man whispered in my ear,' 'You know, you have made 60 million friends for yourselves in Turkey.' Head Sergeant Gance remembers.