A Belgian military plane will fly to the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday to repatriate Belgian and other European nationals that wish to leave the country. The announcement that Belgium is organising a repatriation flight was made by the Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib (Francophone liberal) on Monday.
The plane will depart from Cologne in Germany for Beirut, carrying medical supplies for Lebanese hospitals as part of the B-Fast emergency aid programme. Last week, Belgium announced that it was responding to Lebanon's request for medical equipment and would be sending 150,000 euro’s worth of medical aid, including surgical gloves, needles, compresses, bandages and thermometers.
On its return flight the plane will fly to Belgium carrying Belgians and other European nationals that wish to leave Lebanon. The plane has capacity for 250 passengers.
The Foreign Ministry says that in recent days number of Belgians that have expressed a wish to leave Lebanon has increased. Last Wednesday there were around 100 Belgians that wished to leave. This figure has risen rapidly since.
Until now, Belgium had been relying on on commercial flights or special flights organised by other European countries to repatriate Belgians that wanted to leave Lebanon. On Friday, a first group of about five Belgians returned aboard a Dutch military flight. Around 30 more Belgians returned on Saturday aboard another Dutch military flight.
The Belgian Defence Ministry said last week it was ready to carry out a repatriation operation, but it was waiting go ahead from the government. According to a recent estimate there are around 1,800 Belgians still in Lebanon.