Abu Dhabi: A team from the Ministry of Interior’s Victim Affairs Office has been dispatched to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine following a request by Interpol.
The team will help identify some of the victims of the Malaysian Airlines plane that was shot down in an area of eastern Ukraine held by Russian-backed separatists last week.
The crash led to the death of all the 298 individuals on board the flight.
The team is led by Major Raed Ali Al Muhairi, Director of the Victim Affairs Office. It includes experts and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) from the Emergency and Public Safety Department.
Major General Ahmad Nasser Al Raisi, Director-General of the Abu Dhabi Police Central Operations and Chairman of Victims Affairs Office Committee, said that the decision to send the team reflects on the Victim Affairs Office’s abilities to respond to emergency situations effectively and promptly whenever needed.
The UAE is the only Arab member of the Interpol’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit.
Abu Dhabi is one of the few cities worldwide whose DVI team operates around the clock, as other cities have set up their corresponding bureaus to deal with mass casualties only when disasters strike.
Gulf News had previously reported that around 62-70 per cent of disasters that Abu Dhabi’s DVI team usually responds to are plane crashes.
