The second Dutch military plane repatriating civilians from Lebanon landed on Saturday evening at 8:50 p.m. in Eindhoven. On board were 170 passengers, including 35 Belgians. Among these, journalist Robin Ramaekers and cameraman Stijn De Smet of VTM, injured earlier in the week.
The plane was deployed to repatriate civilians from Lebanon. A first flight landed Friday evening with 185 people on board, including 55 Belgians who were transferred to Brussels. According to a spokesperson for the FPS Foreign Affairs, around forty Belgians had applied for the flight on Saturday evening, but seven of them ultimately did not show up at Beirut airport.
The SPF will now assess the number of people still wishing to leave Lebanon and will consider, possibly with the help of partners, possibilities for evacuating them, it was explained on Saturday evening.
Stijn and Robin return
On the second plane from Lebanon were the Belgian journalist Robin Ramaekers and his cameraman Stijn De Smet. The two men were attacked in Beirut while seeking to report. “Stijn’s gunshot wound, my broken eye socket, and my bruised ribs hurt, but it’s mostly inside that we’ll need some time. The most important thing is that we are together again” Robin said.
OnAli, our fixer, is doing relatively well. He sat next to me in the hospital when we were being treated. He wasn’t on the plane to Belgium, unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. We will continue to take care of him.”
“We are doing everything we can to help them and get them home quickly“, declared Nicholas Lataire, director of News City (VTM and HLN) at the time of the events, on October 2. It is now a done deal.
Tensions in the Middle East Lebanon Beirut journalists injured Middle East conflict
