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Interior Minister Lucian Bode and head of the Emergency Situations Department (DSU) Raed Arafat signed on Tuesday, alongside representatives of the Damen group, the contract for the purchase of two multi-role ships intended for saving lives and protecting goods, which will be designed and built at the naval shipyard in Galati.
"Today's event represents a new step toward improving the intervention system in emergency situations at sea, by signing the contract, the two multi-role ships with various functions intended to saving lives and protecting goods. They will allow rescuers to intervene at sea, in extreme conditions. The purchase of these ships is a first for our structures and I am convinced that they will contribute to increasing efficiency in the missions we will be called upon to respond," Interior Minister Lucian Bode stated on Tuesday, told Agerpres.
The purchase is funded from European funds through the 2014-2021 Large Infrastructure Operational Programme - Vision 2020, totalling approximately 44 million euro. The ships will enter the Inspectorate General for Emergency Situations' (IGSU) endowment in December 2023.
Bode congratulated the Emergency Situations Inspectorate, which, together with the DSU, "is a champion in drawing European funds."
He showed that another benefit of these new ships is represented by the fact that they can ensure the necessary condition to coordinate joint operations with other structures.
DSU head Raed Arafat mentioned that both ships are the search-rescue type, with capabilities to retrieve persons and accommodate 50 survivors on board, between two and four critical patients and up to 12 patients on trolleys.
He also mentioned that this search-rescue concept will be completed by the helicopters to arrive next year, which will be on the round-the-clock intervention cell and which will collaborate with the purchased ships and the Border Police ships.
