BUCHAREST, Mar 19 (Agerpres/APP) : A C-27J Spartan aircraft of the Romanian Air Force, configured for medical missions, departed from Otopeni to carry out a humanitarian mission transporting four burn patients from Skopje, North Macedonia, to a hospital in Brussels, Belgium.
During the flight, the patients were monitored by a mixed medical team provided by the Ministry of National Defence and the Department for Emergency Situations, as well as Belgian medical personnel. The military aircraft returned to Romania on Wednesday morning, according to a Ministry of National Defence (MApN) press release.
The mission was approved by the Minister of National Defence at the request of the Department for Emergency Situations. It is part of the European Civil Protection Mechanism (ECPM), established in 2001 by the European Union to allow participating countries (EU and non-EU) to coordinate their assistance in the case of a large-scale emergency that cannot be resolved by the civil protection system of a single country.
North Macedonia activated the EU civil protection mechanism, requesting assistance for the evacuation of 15 patients with severe burns. Nine European countries quickly responded – Croatia, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Lithuania, Hungary, Luxembourg and Norway – offering immediate assistance through the mechanism.
On Monday, the Ministry of National Defence announced that a C-27J Spartan aircraft of the Romanian Air Force, configured for medical missions, had departed from Otopeni to carry out a humanitarian mission transporting four burn patients from Skopje, North Macedonia, to a hospital in Vilnius, Lithuania. In the early hours of Sunday, a fire broke out in a nightclub in Kocani, North Macedonia, killing 59 people and injuring over 155.