A South Korean military aircraft carrying 28 nationals from war-ravaged Sudan arrived back home Tuesday, completing a perilous dayslong operation for their evacuation amid intensifying fighting between rival forces in the African nation.
The KC-330 tanker transport plane touched down at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, capping the last phase of Operation Promise, a carefully coordinated mission involving elite forces from the Army, Air Force and Navy and front-line diplomats.
Seoul officials had watched the evacuation process with bated breath, as Sudan has descended into a bloody battle zone following the eruption of violence between Sudan’s military and a rival paramilitary group on April 15.
The evacuees boarded the KC-330 at an airport in Jeddah, western Saudi Arabia, after they flew there from Port Sudan aboard a C-130J transport plane on Monday (local time). They traveled to Port Sudan from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum by land.
The government plans to provide them with medical checkups and other forms of support, ministry officials said. Earlier in the day, it held an interagency meeting on their accommodations and other support measures.
President Yoon Suk Yeol oversaw the evacuation process through a satellite-linked video conferencing with his staff on the ground while on Air Force One en route to Washington for a state visit, according to his aide.
The daunting operation involved elite troops from the 707th Special Missions Group of the Army’s Special Warfare Command, the Air Force’s Combat Control Team as well as the Navy’s anti-piracy Cheonghae unit that was operating off the coast of Somalia.
Front-line diplomats played a key role coordinating with the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for their cooperation in ensuring the safety of the evacuees along their overland travel route in Sudan.
“During Operation Promise, we received active cooperation from friendly nations, such as the U.S., the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and regarding this, we would like to express our deep appreciation,” Deputy National Security Adviser Lim Jong-deuk told reporters on Monday.
The operation harked back to the 2021 mission, called Operation Miracle, to evacuate nearly 400 Afghan colleagues from their war-torn country. For the Afghan mission, the government also mobilized C-130 and KC-330 military aircraft from Korea.
Source: Yonhap News Agency