The Minister of Internal Affairs assured today that Portugal has “teams ready” to support Morocco in its efforts to save the victims, but said that no official request from the Moroccan authorities had yet arrived.
“We are keeping the teams on standby, but they will only be mobilized with an official request from the Moroccan authorities,” said the minister this morning in Matosinhos (Porto).
José Luís Carneiro said that the Prime Minister of Morocco had this morning thanked the “international community for its willingness to support efforts to safeguard the victims and protect and rebuild the country”, but also explained that Morocco was carrying out work “to identify needs” and “assess the damage” in order to determine international aid.
Asked which teams are prepared to go to Morocco, which was hit by an earthquake on Friday night, the minister clarified that they are “search and rescue forces and resources”, but that they will only be determined according to “the activated request and the needs identified by the Moroccan authorities”.
This support could be provided “bilaterally” or through the “European civil protection mechanism”, he added.
As to whether Portugal could send other types of support through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), as France has done, Minister José Luís Carneiro only stated that Portugal has “total availability and solidarity” with a “neighbouring” and “friendly” country to which Portugal is “united by very deep historical and social ties”.
On the sidelines of the inauguration of the Alertinha Academy, a project launched and promoted by the Matosinhos City Council, with the support of the school community and Civil Protection, to promote safety issues, Minister José Luís Carneiro recalled that, from the outset, the Portuguese state had conveyed its willingness and readiness to support the Moroccan authorities.
“On the one hand, the authorities thanked the Portuguese for their gesture of solidarity, and on the other, they said that they are still in the process of assessing the needs in order to determine whether this support will be necessary.”
The earthquake, whose epicenter was in the town of Ighil, 63 kilometers southwest of the city of Marrakech, was felt in Portugal and Spain and reached a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale, according to Morocco’s National Geophysics Institute.
Speaking this morning in Matosinhos, as part of the presentation of the Alertinha Academy, José Luís Carneiro stressed that the initiative is an “effective contribution to the creation and dissemination of a culture of safety among a segment of the population that is, from an early age, an agent for the promotion of responsible, prevention-oriented citizenship.
“Warning is the first step towards ensuring that through learning, teaching and specialized training exercises in the field of civil protection, children and young people internalize values and practices that are essential to safeguarding life, heritage and the environment.”
The minister recalled the earthquake in Morocco in recent days, which has caused thousands of deaths, injuries and displaced people.
“Dangers have no borders and it is up to all of us to help and take care of those who in other latitudes, further away or closer to us, suffer the consequences of natural disasters,” he said.
The minister reiterated that Portugal had expressed its willingness to the Moroccan authorities to provide solidarity support, which would be “embodied in the form of a joint operational force of a multidisciplinary nature, but the deployment of such a mission is subject to a decision by Rabat.
The earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday night caused more than 2,122 deaths and 2,421 injuries, causing widespread damage in the Marrakech region, a major Moroccan tourist destination.
The earthquake, whose epicenter was in the town of Ighil, 63 kilometers southwest of the city of Marrakech, was felt in Portugal and Spain and reached a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale, according to Morocco’s National Geophysics Institute.
