NAF graduates new Special Forces

– Povides free medical services to North-east IDPs

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has graduated another batch of Special Forces personnel comprising officers, airmen and airwomen.
With the recent graduation, NAF has so far trained well over 500 Special Forces personnel in asymmetric warfare in the past 6 months.
The 8-week specialized training, according to NAF spokesperson, Air Vice Marshal Olatokunbo Adesanya, was facilitated by an Israeli Military Training Organisation, Four-Troop Limited in conjunction with NAF instructors at RTC.
He said: “It is designed to meet contemporary security challenges as well as add more value to the base defence architecture of the NAF towards enabling the continuous projection of air power.
“Several air and ground related capacity building initiatives have been conducted in recent times to enable the NAF have depth, flexibility and capability to operate either alone or in conjunction with other sister services.”
Meanwhile, in continuation of the series of efforts aimed at alleviating the plights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the NorTheast and other parts of the country, the NAF has commenced a 2-week medical outreach for IDPs in Maiduguri and Damboa Local Government Areas of Borno State.
With the theme, “Alleviating the Medical/Surgical Needs of IDPs in Maiduguri and Damboa”, the medical outreach also involved surgical interventions for those with complicated and critical health challenges.
Leader of the NAF Medical Outreach Team, and Director of Public Health and Humanitarian Services at Headquarters NAF, Group Capt. Azubuike Chukwuka, said the outreach programme was to assuage the sufferings of the IDPs as well as enhancing civil military relations, as part of the ‘winning the hearts and minds’ strategy of the NAF.
Since the commencement of the exercise on 13 February 2018, the NAF Medical Outreach Team has conducted a total of 71 eye surgeries and 31 general surgeries on IDPs in Maiduguri and Damboa, according to NAF spokesperson, in a statement.
He said: “At Damboa alone, 32 eye surgeries and 10 general surgeries have been conducted on IDPs, after screening 682 of them who had various eye-related ailments. In addition, the NAF Medical Outreach Team has so far provided free medical treatment to 590 IDPs at Damboa alone.
“Therefore, a total of 1272 IDPs have been successfully attended to in Damboa while more are expected to benefit from the NAF humanitarian intervention scheme, which is still ongoing. The beneficiaries were full of appreciation to the NAF for the humanitarian gesture and therefore thanked the CAS for the initiative, which had reportedly added much value to their lives.
“The beneficiaries also called on well-meaning Nigerians and organisations to emulate the NAF noting that the intervention could not have come at a better time than now as most of the IDPs cannot afford the cost for such surgeries if left to foot the bills.
“ NAF had carried out such free medical interventions in all geo-political zones of the country, with the most recent successfully conducted at Enugu, Bakassi and Makurdi.”

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