The first Belgian nationals repatriated from Lebanon as part of a military flight chartered by the Netherlands will arrive on Friday around 10 p.m. by bus at the Neder-over-Heembeek military hospital.
A military Airbus A330 took off towards Lebanon at 9:20 a.m. It will bring back 150 Dutch people, as well as Irish and Finns, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in the morning. In all, exactly 55 Belgians will return to the country, according to exclusive RTL info information.
The plane is expected to land on the tarmac of the Eindhoven military base in the Netherlands around 8 p.m. The Belgians on board will be taken by bus to the Neder-over-Heembeek military hospital this Friday evening around 10 p.m.
They will be welcomed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hadja Lahbib.
Other Belgians were able to receive places on commercial flights from the Lebanese national company Middle East Airlines to Cyprus and Turkey. Consultations are underway with France, which has dispatched an expected ship to Lebanese waters this weekend.
The federal government has decided to help Belgians who wish to leave Lebanon. As of Wednesday, Defense announced that it was ready to carry out an evacuation operation. An initiative currently considered premature, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as Beirut airport remains accessible to civil and military flights.
Currently, some 200 of the 1,800 Belgians in Lebanon have indicated that they want to leave the country.
Two Belgians, journalists from VTM, were arrested and tortured for several hours in Beirut before being abandoned in the street. They will not be among the passengers on this plane. According to the editor-in-chief of VTM, their flight is scheduled for Saturday.
