Belgian First Aid & Support Team

A B-Fast team (Belgian First Aid and Support Team) with 53 people from the Fire Brigade, Civil Defence, the Department of Defence and the Department of Health will be participating in an exercise in Moldavia organised by EADRCC (Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre), NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) instrument for civil crisis management, from 29 August to 2 September 2011. They are going to practice providing emergency aid after a simulated earthquake, together with 26 other international teams. B-Fast runs large-scale exercises at least once a year and international exercises every two years.

Following heavy rains in the Balkans, and in particular in Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania, these countries suffered severe floods during the past days. In Montenegro, more than 6,500 people had been evacuated from their homes  on 8 December and the Montenegrin government foresees at least 2,000 more evacuations in the coming days. Big parts of the country are flooded, dams are close to collapse and communication lines to the north of the country are cut.

Haiti is currently hit by a cholera epidemic. By early December, this epidemic had already caused some thousand deaths, whereas thousands of other victims have been hospitalized and many others are still awaiting medical assistance.

As it is impossible for Haiti to control this epidemic autonomously, the country has submitted an international request for assistance, amongst others via the UN and via the EU Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC). The most urgent needs are shelter, medical kits and water purification systems.

On 8 and 9 October 2010, the B-FAST Induction Course will be organized in Emblem.

Further information available under "operations".

B-FAST has been awarded a quality label via the IEC procedure (INSARAG External Classification) of the United Nations. Further information about this is contained in the following news item.

In 2010, B-FAST (Belgian First Aid and Support Team) faces a big challenge. To comply with international standards and show Belgian expertise to the world, in particular the expertise of staff specialising in finding and rescuing victims in urban environments (USAR), who have been working in Haiti in particular, B-FAST is going to attempt to obtain a quality label via the United Nations IEC (INSARAG External Classification) procedure .

"Operations" contains a report of the B-FAST missions to Haiti and Albania, which both took place in January 2010.