The first 204 Spanish evacuees from Lebanon have arrived at the Torrejón de Ardoz base (Madrid) on an A330 plane of the Air and Space Army that landed after five in the afternoon this Thursday. A second aircraft, an A400M, is scheduled to land later this Thursday with another 37 returnees on board. “Our pilots are magnificent professionals (…), although it is true that the approach [al aeropuerto de Beirut] “It has been complicated,” said the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, after an event at the University of Alcalá de Henares in relation to the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, after a telephone conversation with the commander of the first aircraft. Among those evacuated there are about 200 Spanish citizens, 40 Lebanese, and also nationals of Argentina, the United States, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Venezuela, as confirmed by sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reports Miguel Gonzalez.
Early in the morning, two Armed Forces planes took off – one from Zaragoza and the other from Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa – towards the Lebanese capital, where hundreds of Spanish citizens had been waiting since Wednesday to be evacuated due to the conflict between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militias.
“The evacuations are going well and without problems,” they explained from the Ministry of Defense, without giving more details of the operation that had been in the works for a few days. It is estimated that approximately half a thousand civilians have taken advantage of the plan that the Ministry of Defense is carrying out together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although the latter – on which all the bureaucratic work depends – has not given more details for now.
According to several military sources consulted, it is possible that the number of evacuees wishing to leave Lebanon will increase, which is why the Air and Space Army is already preparing another device in case it is necessary. If necessary, he would travel on Friday, according to army sources. “We will see if these two planes are enough or if we have to send a third plane. Everything is perfectly organized with the Embassy [de España en Líbano]”Robles said this Thursday morning in a television interview.
The first plane that has just arrived at the Torrejón base is the A330, from Djibouti, where Spain has a presence in the framework of air surveillance operations in the Indian Ocean and which supports the European Operation Atalanta against piracy against the coasts of Somalia and the Horn of Africa. The second, which will arrive throughout the afternoon this Thursday, is an A400M and has already been used in several operations of this type such as in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, in Sudan, Niger and, more recently, dropping tons of aid humanitarian in the Gaza Strip. “The Spanish Armed Forces will never leave anyone behind,” Robles remarked. The latter took off at 2:30 p.m. from Beirut with 40 passengers.
Apart from the 1,000 Spanish citizens registered in Lebanon, and the hundreds who have taken advantage of the Government’s evacuation plan, some 650 Spanish soldiers remain in the country within the framework of the United Nations peace mission. And although its evacuation would have to be determined by the UN itself, Spain already has a prepared protocol. Robles assures, after a telephone conversation with General García del Barrio (leader of the Spanish contingent in southern Lebanon), that the UN mission continues with its “mediation work” and that this Thursday they had already left the bunkers.
