The Evacuation Of Turkish Citizens From Libya (Day 10)

Fast ferries M/V Osman Gazi and M/V Orhan Gazi on their
return trip to İstanbul. As of afternoon of 2. March.

According to the Prime Minister's Office, from 19 February till 2 March,  Turkey has evacuated 21.505 people from Libya. 2.982 of the evacuees are foreign nationals.

The 1049 passengers on board of ferry M/V Ankara are not included in the above total.

This was the biggest non-combat evacuation operation Turkey has conducted in the recent years.

The first noticable NEO was evacuation from Albania in March 1997. The Knox class frigate F-251 TCG Adatepe was send to Albania to pick up 253 evacuees.

The second NEO was the evacuation from Lebanon in July 2006. This time the frigates F-493 TCG Gelibolu, F-504 TCG Bartın and the naval ferry A-1600 TCG Iskenderun were send to Beirut to pick up 700 Turkish citizens.

As you can see the previous operations were very small in scale of the latest NEO from Libya. I am very happy to see that the whole operation run very smoothly and there were no serious incidents that might endanger the lives of the evacuees.

Nobody made an official announcement yet but it appears that the main part of the evacuation operation is finished. The two fast ferries M/V Osman Gazi and M/V Orhan Gazi, which made two round trips to Libya are heading to home to Istanbul.

One of the civilian ferries M/V Ankara is as mentioned above on her way to Marmaris. I do not expect her to go back to Libya again. The second ferry M/V Samsun is in Benghazi. It is possible that she will be used for the evacuation of Egyptians trapped in Libya.

Today Turkish General Staff finally shared the names of all the naval vessels that took part in the evacuation operation. They are the frigates F-240 TCG Yavuz, F-245 TCG Oruçreis, F-246 TCG Salihreis, F-492 TCG Gemlik, F-493 TCG Gelibolu, F-494 TCG Gökçeada, the replenishment tanker A-585 TCG Yarbay Kudret Güngör, and the trustworthy naval ferry A-1600 TCG Iskenderun. 

The Evacuation Of Turkish Citizens From Libya (Day 10)
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