Minister of Defence Mariya Ahmed Didi has stated that the government used to provide training to firefighters only in the Maldives, but now it is providing more training courses from abroad. She made the remarks while speaking at the graduation ceremony of the Firefighter Training Course conducted by the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) Fire and Rescue Service.
At the ceremony, Minister Mariya said that President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had pledged to enhance the capacity of MNDF. She added that the most important step to enhance capacity is by providing the necessary training and skills needed by the soldiers.
Additionally, Minister Mariya said that the firefighters of the Fire and Rescue Service were previously only provided training in the Maldives. She, however, said the government is currently providing training courses abroad as a change. As such, she said that said 41 firefighters were trained in India in the past two years while 16 firefighters were trained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year. In addition, short training courses have been conducted for 64 firefighters in six different fields in collaboration with the Fire Service College in the United Kingdom (UK).
Furthermore, Minister Mariya also said that the construction of tall buildings in the Maldives is increasing and no work has been done on the capability of high-rise fire fighting. As such, she said that the government is currently working to develop high-rise fire fighting and urban search and rescue capabilities in the Fire and Rescue Service.