KATHMANDU: A UAE Armed Forces military team has arrived in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, to be the first official military team in the region to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world at 8,858 metres.

The team consists of 16 climbers, 13 of whom are military members of different ranks and units in the UAE Armed Forces, including a doctor specialising in sports medicine and altitude physiology, along with three experts specialised in mountain climbing expeditions.

The team is the biggest military team in the region to conduct such an expedition and one of the first official teams world wide to climb Everest after the earthquake which hit the area in 2015.

The expedition is expected to take around two months to reach the top of the mountain, having different phases.

The team will climb gradually to get acclimatised to the lower levels of oxygen at different heights.

Major General Isa Saif Bin Ablan Al Mazrouei, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, received the team before they left the country, stressing that the UAE government is giving due care to the full training of the UAE Armed Force Members to enable them to work in different types of weather and conditions.