A hundred nationals evacuated from Yemen by the Royal
(BRUSSELS2) Three French ships participated on Sunday (April 5) in the evacuation of 63 nationals - French, European and foreign - who were trapped in the civil conflict in Aden, in the south of Yemen.
It's'Dexterous (P-725), an offshore patrol boat deployed in the Indian Ocean for the European anti-piracy mission EUNAVFOR Atalanta as well as the light stealth frigate Monkshood (F-713), engaged as part of the 2015 Joan of Arc mission, which were as close as possible to collect the nationals, dispatching fast boats (RHIB) to go and recover the nationals on land. Let's bet that the special forces were not very far away...
A two-step operation. First, after having put down "security elements", the fast boats of the Adroit recovered a first plan of 25 nationals - including 23 French and 13 children. Started around 6 a.m. (Paris time), the transfer was completed around 09 a.m. They were then transferred by helicopter to the Dixmude (L-9015), one of the projection and command boats or BPCs of the French Navy, which had remained offshore. Secondly, in the middle of the morning, a second operation began with Aconite. These are the boats of the Yemeni coastguards which transported between the port of Aden and the frigate 38 nationals of different nationalities.
The day before, Saturday (April 4), in the afternoon, 44 nationals had already been evacuated by Diksmuide, from the Balhaf site, in eastern Yemen, directly to Diksmuide, thanks to the on-board EDAR (Fast amphibious landing craft).
THEAdroit then resumed his place in the EUNAVFOR force which he had just joined at the end of March. While the frigate Aconit was en route to Djibouti in the company of the Dixmude that he was to reach this Sunday evening (April 5), according to the General Staff of the armies. A national evacuation operation (Resevac) quite familiar to these two ships, since it was one of the themes of the exercise Spartan practiced together last February. France, through its permanent presence in Djibouti, with the FFDJ, thus finds itself at the forefront of a new conflict.
(NGV)
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