I.S.A.R. Germany looks back on a challenging 2021 with two major assignments. In July, our experts were out and about in the Ahr valley. While some of the I.S.A.R. rescue dogs supported the local police in their search for missing persons together with service dogs, our rescue team was active in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. Using heavy equipment and a lot of manual labour, they cleared roads and homes of the mud left behind by the devastating floods. In turn, I.S.A.R. Germany experts in damage assessment helped with the investigation of partially destroyed building structures.
A few days after the successful conclusion of the mission, we founded I.S.A.R. Turkey, our new country office in Turkey. As soon as it was set up, our local task forces were already supporting fire brigades and rescue teams in the fight against the severe forest fires in southern Turkey, and we were also monitoring the dangerous flood situation - although our help was not needed here, I.S.A.R. was ready.
Following the severe earthquake in the eastern part of the island of Hispanola, our team was deployed in Haiti for almost three weeks in August. More than 800 affected people, including many pregnant women and children, were treated and cared for by I.S.A.R. Germany's medical staff on the island of Grande Cayemite.
Based on the experience gained from our missions, several training and further education programmes were also offered to I.S.A.R. team members throughout the year. In addition to a
Hostile Environment Awareness Training (Heat), training courses for emergency medicine in a crisis context, training for assessment teams and exercises for the search and rescue sector, our emergency presentation component also supported other units and organisations such as the German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (DGzRS) during the Sarex exercise in the Bay of Lübeck.
I.S.A.R. in turn received support from donors from all over Germany, who supported us with money and donations in kind both during the acute emergency situations and independently of them. We would like to thank them for this.