The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECID), sent yesterday a humanitarian shipment to Nepal to contribute to stop the advance of the pandemic and to repatriate, on their return trip, the Spaniards trapped in that country.
The shipment, sent from Madrid on a commercial flight that will land in Kathmandu today, Thursday, is worth around one million euros. The shipment consists of more than five tons of medical equipment and is made up of 15 respirators, 10 oxygen concentrators, together with the consumables and spare parts necessary for their use, 144,000 FFP2 masks and some 125,000 antigen tests. The equipment has been checked so that it can be used immediately upon arrival in Nepal. The equipment is for both hospital and home use and was donated by the Ministry of Health.
Nepal, which is included in the category of “least developed countries in the world” according to UNDP, is suffering an unprecedented COVID-19 crisis due to its proximity to India and has gone from having a daily number of infections of about 150 at the beginning of April to over 9,000 at the beginning of May. The humanitarian material, whose shipment responds to the appeal launched by the local government, will be donated to the Nepalese Ministry of Health upon arrival and is part of the humanitarian response of the European Union’s Team Europe to jointly support the most vulnerable countries in the fight against COVID-19.
The logistics of this humanitarian and repatriation flight have been carried out by the Directorate General of Spanish Abroad and Consular Affairs and by the AECID, whose director, Magdy Martínez-Solimán, will coordinate the aid on the ground and will take advantage of his stay in Nepal to hold meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and health authorities in order to assess the situation in the Asian country.
In addition, the plane used for this shipment of medical supplies will be used to repatriate Spaniards who have been stranded in Nepal due to the suspension of flights. The plane, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, will repatriate “all the climbers and aid workers” who are in the country. Foreign Affairs reported last week that there were 47 Spaniards, mostly in the capital Kathmandu, who had expressed their desire to leave Nepal. The Minister herself had a telephone interview yesterday with her Nepalese counterpart, Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, to whom she thanked the support of her government to repatriate the Spaniards trapped by the border closure and who thanked, in turn, Spain for sending material against COVID-19.
