Brussels, 21/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Union's efforts to aid the Serbian and Bosnian authorities fight the unprecedented flooding, which has left 50 people dead and 1.6 million evacuated, is increasing day by day, whilst Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid in Crisis Response, has arrived in the region to carry out an assessment of needs (see EUROPE 11082). She was in Belgrade (Serbia) on Wednesday 21 May to meet members of the government and of the 200-strong European rescue team working 24 hours a day. She will then travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, a country which has also been hard hit, but which has not yet made a request for assistance under the civil protection mechanism of the EU. On Wednesday, the number of European countries which have offered Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia assistance via the Emergency Response Coordination Centre of the EU rose to 19.
“The European Union has been scaling up its assistance continuously in supporting both countries during the peak of the emergency phase. Offers of assistance by member states keep coming in and I am extremely grateful for this expression of European solidarity”, the commissioner said in a press release. “Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina will also need help to reconstruct damaged infrastructure and restore public services as well as to get people back into their homes. In this next phase of the relief effort we will also be there with them”, she added.
Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Croatia, Slovakia, Denmark, Italy, Romania and Poland have made rescue boats, high-capacity pumps and operational teams available to Serbia.
Austria, Slovenia, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Poland have responded to the request of the Bosnian authorities by providing rescue helicopters to evacuate people, motorboats, generators, sandbags, tents, blankets and other basic essentials.
In total, nearly 400 European rescuers are at work in the two countries. In Serbia, they are helping to ensure the continuity of electricity power stations. The Commission is coordinating the EU's assistance, co-funding transport costs and supplying satellite images of the stricken areas. (AN)