63 European civilians, 34 of them Italian, were evacuated from South Sudan yesterday, 19 December 2013, and are scheduled to arrive in Italy today on an Italian Air Force KC 767 transport plane from Djibouti. The civilians were evacuated following the outbreak of fighting between loyalist forces and rebel units.
Also on board the plane is a team sent by the Foreign Ministry’s Crisis Unit to manage the evacuation operation in close coordination with the Interforces Operational Command (COI). All of the civilians who boarded the plane yesterday in Juba for transfer to Djibouti received initial medical and logistics assistance at the Italian Armed Forces base, which provides support for military units in transit or deployed in the Horn of Africa.