After war broke out in Syria in 2011, Syrians fleeing the country flooded refugee camps in the region, with Jordan’s Zaatari camp becoming the largest.
Rabat – The mission of Morocco’s first Medico-Surgical field Hospital (1erHMCC) in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp has come to end after eight years of serving Syrians fleeing civil war.
The humanitarian mission by Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces (FAR) began in August 2012 under the instructions of King Mohammed VI, who acts as the Supreme Chief and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
With a capacity of 60 beds, the Morocco field hospital deployed 125 medical executives to Zaatari, including 27 military doctors operating in 20 specialties. A military source told Morocco’s state media that specialties included general medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, pneumology, dermatology, pediatrics, and psychiatry.
Surgical specialties included visceral surgery, trauma-orthopedics, obstetrical gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, odontology, ophthalmology, neurosurgery, and reconstructive and plastic surgery, and other specialties in radiology and biology.
Two months after Morocco established the field hospital in the Zaatari refugee camp, King Mohammed VI and Prince Moulay Rachid visited 1erHMCC to hand over two donations for the benefit of Syrian refugees from the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity and the Moroccan Agency for International Cooperation.
The Mohammed V Foundation donation included 5,000 blankets for the elderly, 1,000 blankets for infants, seven incubators for newborns, and 1,000 units of medical and prevention equipment for infants.
The donation from the Moroccan International Cooperation Agency included medicine, medical equipment, and food.
Read also: Morocco Tops Countries That Sent Humanitarian Aid to Lebanon
Five years later, the refugee camp saw welcomed a commission of Moroccan parliamentarians and their counterparts from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (APM).
The field hospital’s work
Throughout its eight-year mission, Morocco’s field hospital in Zaatari conducted more than 1.04 million medical consultations for Syrian refugees, including 346,606 women, 284,711 men, and 413,142 children.
In addition, the hospital offered close to 1.6 million medical services for 557,721 women, 444,102 men, and 589,957 children, and delivered 797,479 prescriptions.
The military hospital also recorded 489,395 operations in various specialties, 312,189 in surgical specialties, and 220,889 additional examinations, namely in biology, radiology, ultrasound, and electrocardiography, according to the same source.
The hospital also recorded a total of 2,006 births, 20,370 hospitalizations, and 9,345 medical evacuations.
As of September 4, the Zaatari camp is home to 77,771 Syrian refugees, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
According to Oxfam, the camp once hosted 150,000 Syrian refugees at its peak and became Jordan’s fourth-largest city.
