Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

The very first Embassy on board since the foundation of Korea has opened.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said on April 5, “We opened the temporary Korean Embassy in Yemen on Wang Geon Ham of the 18th Cheonghae unit on April 3 to secure the safety of our people who expressed a desire to remain in Yemen.”

This temporary Korean Embassy will operate to stay in touch with and protect Korean people who remain in Yemen.

JCS has completed all the safeguards to support the temporary Embassy in Yemen while escorting ships and performing maritime security operations smoothly.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Choi Yoon-hee evaluated the Embassy as the representative cooperation case among the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying it was the will to protect overseas Koreans by establishing the temporary Korean Embassy in the Cheonghae Unit for our people who evacuate from Yemen and supporting our military in areas without established local embassies.

He also stressed further efforts to protect Korean people who play an active part around the world. 

The MND and JCS have been devoting themselves to protecting our people and vessels as well in the Middle East and Africa where the current situation is insecure due to super national threats by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant(ISIL) and Al-Qaeda, civil war, terrorism, etc.

The Cheonghae unit in particular has promoted construction of a strategic hub with individual dispatched officers who are under missions in Djibouti and Bahrain as the center. This effort demonstrated its effectiveness during the evacuation of Koreans living in Yemen.

During the first evacuation, on March 28, 10 Koreans moved to Djibouti where a Korean Embassy was not established. JCS helped them go through the entry procedure, booking accommodations and providing transportation to minimize their inconvenience while maintaining a real-time communication system with a coordination officer who is dispatched to the Combined Joint Task Force, subordinate of the U.S. Africa Command in Djibouti.

Not only that, the JCS took measures to get aid from the U.S. Army through the U.S. Army Headquarters in Korea, preparing for any accidental situations. 

And their mission capability stood out during the second evacuation of five Korean people to Ethiopia using the UN’s aircraft on March 31. With the U.S. and multi-national command supporting, the JCS shared information with relevant departments such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after understanding the current circumstances. They also instituted a careful plan to have Wang Geon Ham of the 18th Cheonghae unit move to the coast of Djibouti preparing for emergency situations. 

　

By Byeong-No, Yun <trylover@dema.mil.kr>

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