President Yoon Seok-yeol led an operation to rescue Koreans from Sudan on a chartered flight to Washington for a state visit to the United States.
At a briefing at the Press Center in Washington, DC, the United States on the 25th (local time), President Kim Eun-hye, chief of public relations, said, “28 Koreans from Sudan in Africa have been safely rescued.” said.
“President Yoon first received a report on the situation in real time, and from the beginning of the operation, he ordered the urgent dispatch of a South Korean military aircraft, the Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin of the Cheonghae Unit, and security personnel of the special warfare unit,” he said. He explained that he was connected to hold a video conference, received a situation report so that Korean residents could safely evacuate, and commanded the situation right before the escape.”
Regarding the operation name ‘Promise’, which means ‘promise’, a presidential office official added, “It is because such an operation was carried out to fulfill the president’s promise to take responsibility for the lives and safety of the people until the end.”
In addition, President Yoon said, “I ordered the establishment of a close cooperative relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE)” for this evacuation operation, and said, “It would not have been easy to rescue them by land if it had not been for the UAE, which had several information networks.”
Earlier, as the fighting between the government forces and the rebels intensified in Sudan, President Yoon ordered the swift implementation of countermeasures, including the dispatch of military transport planes, on the 21st, saying, “Do your best for the safety of Koreans living abroad under any circumstances.” On the 22nd, he ordered the dispatch of the Cheonghae unit from the port of Salalah in Oman to the waters near Sudan.
The 28 Koreans who had gathered at the Korean embassy in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, boarded several buses and arrived at Port Sudan Airport, a port city in the northeast. After boarding our military aircraft waiting at Port Sudan Airport, we moved to King Abdulaziz Airport located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Twenty-six of them are scheduled to return to Seoul Airport around 4:00 p.m. It is known that the two will stay in Jida as they do not want to return home immediately.
Source: Donga
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