DEFENCE MINISTRY- Crosetto: Vulcano Navy Ship is coming back with Palestinian children onboard

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“Our Vulcano Navy Ship set sail from Al Arish harbour, in Egypt, to come back to Italy with 60 people onboard, Palestinian children and their accompanying families. We are proud that our ship and the joint Forces medical personnel onboard are working to provide aid to the Palestinian people”, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in a press release on the departure of Vulcano Navy Ship, whose arrival in Italy is scheduled in the next few days at Civitavecchia.

“Our humanitarian initiative, however – Minister Crosetto continued- has only been joined by France, with regard to the deployment of further hospital ships, and Qatar, which provided medical personnel to supporto the Vulcano ship hospital”.

The Qatari medical team, which embarked on the Italian ship docked at a port in Egypt since the beginning of December, will stay onboard until arrival in the port of Civitavecchia, Italy. From there, patients will be transferred to hospitals across Italy to receive treatment. They will be hospitalized in Bologna (Rizzoli Hospital), Florence (Meyer Children’s Hospital), Genoa (Gaslini Children’s Hospital) and Rome (Bambin Gesù).

Next week, if necessary, the Join Operations Centre (COVI), in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), will organize a further Air Force flight to Cairo and Al Arish, to take other children to Italy. 

The first Palestinian children and their accompanying persons, arrived in Italy by a military flight on 29 January.