The government plans to send a third military plane to evacuate from Lebanon the Spaniards who wish to leave the country in the face of the recent escalation between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and who did not do so on board the two planes sent this week last.
This was revealed this Monday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, in statements on La 1, reported by Ep, specifying that the flight would take place “in principle this week”, probably Wednesday“.
As he explained, this morning he contacted the Ministry of Defense headed by Margarita Robles “so that one of the planes that will carry out flights to Beirut for reasons other than evacuation can return with Spanish citizens who still wants it.
On the other hand, Albares revealed that since last Thursday, 40 other Spanish citizens left Lebanon on board. planes chartered by other countrieslike Portugal and the Netherlands, to evacuate their nationals and recalled that there are still commercial routes, since there are still flights from Beirut to Madrid and that there are also ships to other countries in the area.
In this sense, he encouraged Spaniards who wish to leave Lebanon and have not yet done so to contact the Spanish Embassy to help them find commercial flights or include them on planes chartered by other countries. However, the minister indicated that “there are almost no Spanish citizens who have expressed their desire to leave the country.”
The Spanish embassy initially held records of around 1,000 Spaniards and their family members in Lebanon. Last Thursday, around 200 of them left the country aboard two planes chartered by the Ministry of Defense, an A400 and an A330. The first of them had a capacity of 288 people, but flew with around 240 passengers, while the second, with 116 seats, flew to Madrid with only 40 passengers.
