With flight ban lifted, wounded Peshmerga finally travel abroad for treatment

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A high-ranking medical officer in the Ministry of Peshmerga on Wednesday said seven of its fighters, wounded during the war with the Islamic State (IS), were flown from Erbil to the Czech Republic for treatment.

The transport comes after being postponed for nearly six months due to the international travel ban imposed by Baghdad on airports in the Kurdistan Region in late September.

“The ban on flights at airports in Kurdistan halted the process of sending out the injured Peshmerga, but after the lifting of the embargo, the ministry will send more in the near future,” Major General Mohsen Rashid told Kurdistan 24.

The officer explained that the flight was made in coordination with the Czech Ministry of Defense and the Czech consulate in Erbil and that it was the second such flight in a plan for several to come.

The first batch of Peshmerga flew out of Erbil on Sep. 23, two days before the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum, which sparked the controversy with Iraq’s federal government that led to the flight embargo.

Treatment of the soldiers’ medical conditions will take place at the Central Military Hospital (CMH) in Prague and will be funded by the MoD of the Czech Republic as part of its Program for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Wounded Military Personnel of Partner Countries in the Czech Republic, enacted in 2016.

Mohsen said over 10,000 Peshmerga fighters were wounded in the war with IS.

Approximately 700 fighters have been sent to other countries for advanced treatment since the rise of the extremist group in Iraq, and about 60 fighters are still in dire need of urgent care.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany