Returned “The Spartan”, delivered aid to Syria. With him is a team from bTV, which is the only television on board the machine. The Bulgarian medics, who helped for 10 days in Turkey, also returned home with the military plane, which landed at Vrazdebna airport.
With “Spartana”, Bulgaria sent the first humanitarian aid to Syria. On the way back, the plane passed through Turkey and picked up our medics who were helping there after the devastating earthquake.
The Bulgarian doctors said that they will never forget what they saw. They saw their loved ones for the first time in 10 days of fieldwork.
“The help we provided was to living people, outside of destruction, suffering of a different nature. From the destruction and buildings themselves, we were not able to get people alive,” said Major Tsvetan Stanimirov, a military doctor.
Photo: bTV Media Group
Maria was also in the VMA team. She said that as a woman, the experience was more difficult for her because she associated everything with her family and loved ones.
“Sorrow, tragedy, hope in the eyes of the people. It’s an amazing feeling. They are waiting to see what happens to the relatives. Relatives had flocked from all parts of Turkey to sit by the ruins of the building. They are asking for rescuers and hoping that their loved one will come out alive. It’s hard. The sorrow, the tears, the pain that people experienced was indescribable,” said senior officer Maria Borisova, MD at the Academy of Medical Sciences.
General Mutafchiiski was at the airport to meet the medics. He said he was proud of his colleagues. He tried to replace them earlier, but they said they wouldn’t leave because they had more work to do.
“Our people were up to par. Of course I’m proud of them because they left just two hours after the government’s decision to send aid teams was announced,” said Prof. Dr. Ventsislav Mutafchiiski, head of the VMA.
Only a bTV team was on board the plane that delivered the first aid to Syria. He went home with the pilots from Beirut.
“I saw exceptional professionalism on the part of the Bulgarian pilots, the entire team. They do their work without any vanity, only with the idea that this help should be delivered because there are people who need it,” said the international editor Yana Burzakova.
And the pilots who took our medics to Adana and back say that they are already used to the risk and tension.
“The flight went quite normally. These are routine tasks for us, the eighth or ninth of this crisis. Everything was normal,” said Major Veselin Assenov, the plane’s crew commander.
Our doctors are categorical – if there is a need for them, they are always on the line.