KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — A Germany-based Air Force medical team continues to treat American evacuees from Lebanon on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, but the group hopes to return home within the week, the unit’s commander said Monday.
The 22 members of the 435th Medical Group are providing care to the evacuees who are waiting in Cyprus for flights to the U.S. The team consists of doctors, nurses and medical technicians from Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which are both in the Kaiserslautern area.
The team arrived last month as the military and the U.S. State Department began evacuating American citizens due to the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel military forces.
The Air Force group has joined with Navy doctors, nurses and medical corpsmen to treat people at the airport in the coastal city of Larnaca as they leave, and at the fairgrounds in Nicosia, which has been used as a central staging area for people waiting for flights off the island.
“We’re seeing just a little less,” Col. Carol Vermillion, the group’s commander, said of the number of patients. “The numbers aren’t as high, but we continue to see people.”
Vermillion said she couldn’t give statistics on the number of patients treated.
It’s unclear when the airmen will begin flying home, but Vermillion said they hoped to be back as early as the end of this week. The medical specialists, along with a contingent from the 352nd Special Operations Group from RAF Mildenhall, England, have been involved with the evacuation effort.
About 1,800 Americans passed through Ramstein Air Base from Cyprus aboard 19 C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft last month. The Air Force stopped flying the evacuees through the base last week, Capt. Chrystal Smith, a spokeswoman for the 435th Air Base Wing at Ramstein, said Monday.
