In recent days, the Italian contingent in Lebanon hosted a workshop focused on crisis management and the search for missing people in urban areas following natural disasters at its base in Shama.
The seminar, developed and held in collaboration with theInstitute for Research Information Defense (ISTRID), saw the participation of representatives of the main organizations operating in the event of disasters and emergencies in favor of the population of southern Lebanon.
During the theoretical phase, issues related to theUrban Search and Rescue, search and rescue in the urban environment, to define the set of practices to be adopted for the search and rescue operations of people buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings or structures, of missing persons after explosions or seismic events, with the aim of evaluating the capacitive gaps in the civil protection structure, improving its yield.
This course, the first to take place on the subject since the end of the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fourth organized in Land of the Cedars from ISTRID from 2010 to today in collaboration with the Italian Blue Helmets, it was born from the tragic experience of the explosion of the silos at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020 which put a strain on the Lebanese rescue machine. From that event arose the need for a central coordination of relief efforts, to ensure a more efficient and effective management of relief efforts and of the resources to be deployed in the event of tragic events.
On the sidelines of the workshop, Brigadier General Giuseppe Bertoncello, commander of the national contingent and of the West Sector of the UN mission together with the area manager Civil and military cooperation of the ISTRID, dr. Roberto Faccani, delivered to the representatives of the civil protection bodies present (Disaster Risk Reduction Unit, Civil Defense, Caritas, Red Cross, Al-Resala, Islamic Association for Health) electronic equipment for the search of the missing and personal protective equipment.
Furthermore, the treatment of the case studies of the course also focused attention on the so-called "gender issues", to give concrete answers to the needs of women, the disabled and the elderly, allowing them to overcome the emergency in a reasonably quick time. For this reason, ISTRID wanted to donate to the director of a school for disabled children in a Lebanese municipality, machinery for handling the clay that facilitates the recovery of manual functionality.
This initiative, therefore, had the ambition to provide another form of strategic collaboration between the Lebanese operators in the sector and the Italian peacekeepers operating in Lebanon on behalf of the United Nations. In fact, the Italian military continue in their incessant work of support to the local population with projects, like this one, coordinated by the specialists of the Multinational Cimic Group of Motta di Livenza (TV), always in contact with the local authorities for the planning of interventions focused on real needs and the concrete needs of all municipalities in the area of responsibility.
