BARBADOS WILL BE the starting point for TRADEWINDS 2017, the largest regional multi-agency multinational security and disaster management exercise that is held in the Caribbean.
Exercise TRADEWINDS 2017, jointly hosted by Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago in partnership with the United States of America, will officially start here on June 6 and ends in Trinidad and Tobago on June 17.
It will involve personnel from 21 countries including the membership of the Regional Security System, CARICOM, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
At a news conference at the headquarters of the Barbados Defence Force this morning, host nation co-director Major Carlos Lovell of the Barbados Defence Force announced that approximately 800 soldiers, sailors, police and disaster management practitioners will arrive in Barbados to participate in the exercise.
Aircraft, maritime vessels and resources which have not been utilised in Barbados since the last large scale TRADEWINDS deployment in 2003, will be involved in the exercise, Major Lovell said.
Barbadians are being encouraged to volunteer for some of the real-life scenarios to be enacted during the exercise which will be based on threats of trans-national organised crime, terrorism and natural hazards that result in national and regional crises. (GC)
