Britannia rescue over — clean up begins

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 10

Britannia rescue over — clean up begins

NZPA-PA London Royal Yacht Britannia yesterday completed her last rescue mission in war-torn South Yemen, after saving 1082 people from 50 different nations. As the latest load of 440 refugees were disembarking at Djibouti, the yacht’s captain, Rear Admiral John Gamier, said, “The job we set out to do is finished.” Now Britannia will set a new course for Auckland, where she will rendezvous with the Queen, arriving for a visit on February 22. On the way the crew will work at transforming what has become a floatine transit camp back into

a vessel worthy of the title of Royal yacht Sheets laid down to protect luxurious carpets will be taken up and mattresses removed from the drawing and banqueting rooms. Rear Admiral Garnier said: “There is a certain amount of cleaning up to be done, but, the people we’ve had on board have been very understanding about keeping things as clean as possible. I am confident we shall arrive in New Zealand as shipshape and beautiful as always.” Britannia’s last contingent of refugees was her biggest. But Rear Ad-

miral Garnier said he had been prepared to pick up 1000 refugees from the beaches at Little Aden if necessary. After Britannia set sail for Djibouti, news came of 850 new arrivals, mainly from India and Pakistan, waiting to be rescued. Rear Admiral Gamier said: “As there were five Soviet merchant vessels still in the area, and the refugees were not in any apparent danger, my priority was to disembark the people we had on board, some of whom had been with us for two days.” The British Ambassador, Mr Arthur Marshall,

said diplomats in the British Embassy in Aden, had washed in champagne and worked from under their desks while fighting raged outside. Mr Marshall said on board HMS Jupiter, a frigate in a British task force assisting evacuation efforts, that the embassy’s water and electricity were cut off by the civil war in South Yemen. He said he and his staff spent the first five days of the conflict under tables in the embassy “with our heads down and telephones on the floor, trying to contact British subjects, diplomatic colleagues and local contacts”.

’ Because there was no water, “we were washing in champagne,” said Mr Marshall. Yesterday the threat of all-out civil war hung over South Yemen as mountain tribesmen were reported streaming towards Aden to confront hardline Marxists fighting President Ali Nasser Muhammad. Renewed fighting was reported in Aden as Nasser Muhammad sought to regain a firm foothold in the capital, but the situation remained confused. Diplomats in Moscow said the Soviet Union was taking a hands-off attitude in spite of its Interest in a key Middle East ally.