Disaster Assistance Response Team has no immediate plans to travel to Pakistan
Foreign military forces from the United States, Japan and Australia are either in Pakistan or en route in the wake of the worst flooding in the country’s history, but the Canadian military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team has no immediate plans to travel to Pakistan since it hasn’t been asked to go. An official at the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad said a DART deployment “can only be considered upon formal request from the government of the affected country.” The Pakistan government publicly thanked DART for their assistance following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that killed 80,000 people, but there was controversy over Pakistan’s demand that Canadian troops avoid bringing any weapons into the country. If Canada ultimately does send DART to Pakistan, the team would probably be deployed in southern Pakistan where floodwaters remain high.