The Diplomat
The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, visited yesterday the Second Emergency Intervention Battalion (BIEM II) of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), to whose members she conveyed the “pride of all Spain” for their participation in the rescue work after the earthquake in Turkey, which resulted in the rescue of six people alive, the first in the history of UME interventions after an earthquake.
“The three extractions they carried out of a mother and two children, and also the help in the rescue of three other people, have made us all cry,” said Robles during the ceremony, held at the Morón de la Frontera Air Base (Seville). “The only thing I can say is the pride we feel, which is the pride of all Spain to have an Armed Forces and, in this case, a Military Emergency Unit that, putting their lives at risk by the possibility of seismic aftershocks, went to the end saving people,” She added.
“They have returned with the impotence of not having been able to save more lives, but they poured in and gave their all,” the minister continued. “Wherever in the world a man or woman from the Spanish Armed Forces is needed, there will always be there to help and rescue people who are having a hard time,” she added.
In the presentation of Operation Earthquake Turkey 2023, the head of the BIEM II, Lieutenant Colonel José Alberto Gallego, explained that the “experience has been unforgettable because “it is the first time that the UME has rescued people alive”. A particularly emotional case, recalled Defense, was the extraction of two young children and their mother (Muslim, Elif and Leyla) on February 10 in the town of Nurdagi, in the southeast of the country. In total, the Spanish emergency military carried out work at nine different sites in the towns of Islahiye and Nurdagi and participated in the rescue of six people alive, three of whom were recovered directly by the Spanish team, and nine deceased victims.
