UNIPATH STAFF
The Qatari Armed Forces helped rescue hundreds of victims of a massive terrorist attack in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in October 2017. Under orders from His Royal Highness Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a Qatari medical and rescue team aboard a C-17 aircraft flew 2,700 kilometers to Somalia with first aid for victims of a terror bombing that overwhelmed Mogadishu’s medical system.
Afterward, Qatar helped transport more than 100 wounded to hospitals in Khartoum, Sudan. The military mission included assistance from the Qatar International Search and Rescue Group and Hamad Medical Corporation.
In a further gesture of goodwill, Qatar’s ambassador to Sudan, Rashid bin Abdulrahman Al Nuaimi, visited injured Somalis. The Qatari Embassy was assigned the task of monitoring the well-being of the patients.
A bomb-laden truck exploded in a commercial district in Mogadishu, killing nearly 300 and wounding hundreds more.
The disaster swamped the health system of a poor country that has experienced decades of civil war and remains vulnerable to assaults by the terrorist group al-Shabaab. In a multinational effort to help the bombing victims, Qatari forces were joined by those of the United States, Kenya and Turkey.
Sources: The Peninsula, The New Arab