A first Air and Space Force plane will land this Thursday afternoon in Madrid with 200 citizens on board coming from Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. These are Spanish citizens and their families who had expressed their intention to leave the country after the bombings of recent days.
A second Armed Forces plane is in Beirut and also plans to take off this Thursday for Spain. In total, the government plans to evacuate around 500 people, including Spaniards, their family members and nationals of other countries who have requested Spain’s help to leave Lebanon.
The first of the transport planes, a A330 of the Air Force, landed early this Thursday morning in Beirut and the second, a A400M left around 6 a.m. from the Zaragoza air base, arrived shortly before 12 a.m., as confirmed by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles.
These two Air Force planes are participating in the first phase of the evacuation plan, although a third party could do it too if necessary. “We will see if these two planes are enough or if it is necessary to send a third plane,” Robles said in an interview with Telecinco.
The Ministry of Defense, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, plans to evacuate around 500 Spanish citizens and their families, although final number may vary according to those who, at the last moment, also communicate their intention to leave the country or those who, on the other hand, deny the means offered by the government.
“These evacuations have a obvious danger“, as has happened in other cases that the Air and Space Force has done, both in Afghanistan and in Niger and Sudan, due to the overflights to be carried out and the situation at Beirut airport”, explained the head of Defense, in any case, she was “calm” and hopes that “a significant part of the evacuation” will be carried out throughout the day .
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albaresindicated that the decision to implement the evacuation plan, which the Executive had prepared since last week in the absence of its activation, was transferred on Tuesday to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez and, once he received his approval, he asked the Ministry of Defense to make the necessary means available to him.
Albares clarified that the government’s intention is that these 500 people leave Lebanon on board the two planes that landed this morning in the capital and that in the coming hours, throughout the day, they will land in Torrejón de Ardoz Air Baseas in other operations of this type.
