ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan’s Peshmerga ministry announced the opening of a German-financed medical storage facility in Erbil to help with medical assistance on the frontlines of the war with ISIS.
“We executed the project three months ago at a cost of $550,000 which was covered by Germany,” said Maj. Gen. Muhsin Rasheed, head of the medical department at the Peshmerga ministry.
The facility is to store medical equipment before it is sent to the fronts, where the Peshmerga are fighting ISIS near Mosul.
An approximate 2,000 Peshmerga have died on the frontlines of the war with ISIS, while 11,000 others have been wounded.
“This project is crucial, because we can’t distribute medical equipment that we receive right after we get it. Every item has to be stored first before it can be distributed to the fronts in a planned manner,” Rasheed said.
“We have received supplies such as wheelchairs, walking sticks and so on,” he added.
Rasheed appealed to countries and humanitarian organizations for medical assistance, especially a military hospital and mobile hospitals.
“We ask any country or humanitarian organization to open military hospitals. Having 140,000 Peshmerga and 100,000 Asayesh (security forces) and police, it does not make sense not to have (a military hospital,” he added.
Rasheed said that medical equipment on the way included one ambulance on the way and another 10 in the pipeline, but refused to disclose now where they were coming from.
“We knock any doors to provide us with more medical support,” Rasheed said.
