WORLD : Japan Medics Leave Saudi Arabia
Japan’s lone aid team in Saudi Arabia has returned home, and officials were unsure today whether the government would send more.
The seven doctors and nurses who made up Japan’s second medical assistance team had all left by Dec. 28, the Foreign Ministry said today, ending a mission plagued by too few volunteers and what critics say is the Japanese people’s unwillingness to consider the Iraqi invasion their problem.
Both missions drew only a total of two dozen volunteers.
“We are still not sure whether we really can . . . make a meaningful contribution,” said a Foreign Ministry official.
Two ministry officials who accompanied the second team are the only Japanese personnel still among the more than half a million U.S. and allied troops massed in the Persian Gulf.
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