In a statement sent to Lusa, the GNR said that the drones of the Emergency Protection and Relief Unit (UEPS) have already made 1,290 flights and 554 flight hours, not only in emergency, protection and relief operations but also in police missions.

The GNR highlighted the search missions for missing persons, in which the use of drones “has considerably increased the probability of success in safeguarding human life, effectively being a differentiating means”.

The police used drones in operations to rescue the bodies of five UEPS soldiers who were inside a forest firefighting helicopter that crashed into the Douro River on August 30, when they were returning from a fire in the municipality of Baião.

Also in July, 18 GNR soldiers, supported by a drone team, helped find an 83-year-old woman who was missing in Vila Verde da Raia, in the municipality of Chaves, near the border with Spain.

The police also highlighted the international projection of this unit, namely in the support provided to Mozambique following Cyclone Idai, which hit the country in March 2019, and to Turkey, after the earthquake of February 6, 2023.

The GNR added that drones can also be used for forest surveillance and inspection, detection and monitoring of rural fires, mapping of burnt areas, in supporting the policing of major events, and in collecting evidence. The police recalled that the use of drones began with the training of the first pilots, in 2016, and involved the creation of “teams specifically dedicated” to these aircraft within the UEPS, “distributed throughout the country”.