Who will provide Role 2 (medical) for the EUTM mission?
(BRUSSELS2) This is an essential question. If the staff of supervisors and trainers for the Somali military training mission in Uganda (EUTM Somalia) should be more or less provided (1), an essential point is still missing for the proper conduct of the mission: who will ensure Role 2, the on-site medical services? The question is not resolved. " It is a problem " recognizes an expert in the case.
« We are awaiting a proposal from a Member State. Otherwise we will have to wait for a proposal from a third country or resort to outsourcing (1)”. It could be resolved during the force generation process. For the moment, in fact, there are only “informal proposals” from States.
A need detected. The assessment mission had shown that there was a need for a reinforced medical service. The Ugandans' training camp has only limited surgical capacity. Certainly it is not a complete "role 2", as in Chad (where there were a hundred men and several surgical blocks). Because the risks are limited. There is no commitment of troops. A double surgical team, well equipped and endowed, with anesthesia and various materials for recovery and resuscitation is however necessary, having a helicopter for the Evasan (medical evacuation). Because an accident during training, a shooting accident is quite possible, and even largely probable, over a one-year mission. And you always have to plan for the worst: an attack or a desperate act of terrorism. The Al Shabab militias have thus threatened Uganda to attack them, to make them pay for their significant support for AMISOM and the Somali Transitional Government (TFG). The mission is only seemingly safe.
(1) 50-60 Spaniards, at least 30 French, 10-20 Italians, as many Germans, etc...
(2) A private solution used in Georgia, not without risk moreover: an ambulance driver died on a mine.
Georgia: A mine explodes as an EU observer vehicle passes. Toll: 1 dead
The issue of AMISOM medical posts is (or was?) equally precarious. The Ugandan contingent had undertaken to deploy a level II hospital. Without the United States and their Dyncor, this station would have remained very rudimentary. It was also the Americans who evacuated the wounded to Nairobi or Kampala. Perhaps the situation has improved since my departure (November 2009). Moreover, a constant shortcoming in peacekeeping operations in Africa is the medical side. Sending a medical company is one thing, but a) usually this company is quite limited in its means (except the Senegalese), b) the mission does not take into account the fact that this company will have to treat many more civilians than members of the mission. This is one of the recommendations that I constantly make in my missions for the Commission in terms of training and preparation for missions.