Supporting a mass emergency evacuation

Supporting a mass emergency evacuation

NES Fircroft has been operational in Basra, Erbil and Mosul in Iraq since 2009, and whilst there had been comparatively fewer terrorist attacks driven by sectarian movements in southern Iraq, there had been an increase in religiously motivated events.

Against this backdrop, NES was alerted by its risk consultant Control Risks (in association with International SOS) that a terrorist organisation had seized control of Mosul and had started attacking various urban centres

Subsequently, NES had to consider the safety of the contractors working in the region and take measures to evacuate those affected.

NES immediately put its incident task force on standby to prepare for evacuation of its contractors out of Iraq at short notice. In addition, the severity of the situation was verified by NES’s contractors on the ground in Basra and Kirkuk and this was reiterated by Control Risks.

Our Solution

NES has 40 years’ experience of operating in high risk locations and have had to evacuate contractors at short notice in various locations across the globe. Our safety and evacuation procedures are well tested and have been honed over the years with an emphasis on speed and appropriateness of response to ensure the health and well-being of contractors is always the first priority.

  • NES received confirmation from the client that all contractor travel to Iraq was to cease with immediate effect.
    At this point the incident task force became operational and orchestrated an exercise to identify and grade all project assignees.
  • A second list of contractors to be evacuated was issued by the client; NES’s travel team worked across the weekend and late into the evenings to contact, cancel and re-arrange travel for the contractors to various home locations.

 

The results of our support

NES’s finance, travel and assignment support teams worked with the client’s logistic and finance teams to ensure all cancellations were managed with airlines / travel agents and that all invoices and supporting paperwork was collated, cross-referenced and correct.

Through the combined efforts of NES’s support functions working closely with the client, each of our contractors remained safe and the entire workforce was repatriated home in just a matter of days

Staffing expertise for a brighter tomorrow

Get in touch