JEDDAH, 21 December 2006 — A seven-person Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) left Jeddah early yesterday morning after a week in the Kingdom. The little known all-volunteer unit had been flown in to assist the UK pilgrims killed and injured in a coach crash near Rabigh on Dec. 9.
Fay O’Connor, team leader, and the team were deployed to Saudi Arabia at the request of the British Consul General Gerard Russell a few days after the crash that killed three UK Haj pilgrims and injured nearly 30 more. “This time we had a few days’ warning,” said O’Connor while returning with the team from a final visit to the victims still in Rabigh General Hospital. “The teams are ordinarily on standby and expected to be able to respond to an emergency at four hours notice.”
The team consisted of four FO officials, two Red Cross advisers and a medical doctor. One of the two female FO officials was Muslim and was thus tasked to visit the injured pilgrims in Al-Noor Hospital in Makkah.
Of those still in hospital in Jeddah, Makkah or Rabigh, O’Connor said that six or so were still in a very serious condition with abrasions on the arms and legs as a result of the accident.
The function of the team was to assist with the paperwork, repatriation and personal problems of UK citizens in an emergency. “We are here to put a human face on bureaucracy when victims under stress or in a country unknown to them are probably unable to help themselves,” she said.
While explaining to victims what can be done in a particular country, part of the job was to outline the limitations as well. “Standards of efficiency and care vary around the world and sometimes we have to outline limits as well as options,” she said. With 60 million journeys undertaken by Britons each year, and 13 million living overseas, they are more vulnerable than ever to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, political upheaval, wars or major accidents. After the 2002 Bali bombing, the FCO identified a need for a capability to respond at any time to any crisis anywhere in the world, and provide the highest quality care for British citizens, often in support of the embassy, sometimes working alone.
Since 2003, the RDTs have deployed 21 times, including to bombings in Riyadh, Doha, Istanbul, Sharm El Sheik, Marmaris and Bali, to the Asian Tsunami in 2004, to the earthquake in Pakistan on Oct. 8, 2005, to work with the Navy to evacuate Britons from Lebanon, and in response to hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. The team liaises with the local consulate and obtains the necessary visas, passes and papers as well as contacting relatives of the victims. “A lot of what we do is listen to their concerns and worries,” she said.
Commenting on this visit, her first to Saudi Arabia, she said she had been very pleasantly surprised at the cooperation and concern for the crash victims’ welfare. “Officials have been outstandingly helpful and put us in touch with anyone we needed,” she said. “The care given to the victims was of an extremely high standard.”
As the team left to pack to return to the UK, O’Connor said that she would carry away a very positive image of the pilgrims the team had assisted. She was deeply impressed by what she described as the “grit and determination” of all the pilgrims to finish Haj and what they had come to do. Quoting one pilgrim she said, “He was injured but told me from his bed that whatever else happened, he was going to set foot on the holy ground of Arafat and somehow complete Haj.”
