To help cope with the disaster of Hurricane Daniel, which hit Libya, the Egyptian authorities announced the arrival of the helicopter carrier "Mistral" to Libya to work as a field hospital to support those affected by the hurricane, amid the assistance provided by Cairo since the beginning of that humanitarian disaster.

Edited by| Christian Megan

Middle East  section -  CJ journalist

Cairo – September ,17,2023

"This comes in implementation of the directives of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to continue providing immediate support and humanitarian relief to the state of Libya,"a statement said.

Observers and military experts said that sending the aircraft carrier "Mistral" on its first official mission to Libya is of great significance, given the large equipment it has, and to help more in the relief of those affected by the current crisis.

This comes at a time when the death toll from the floods in the city of Derna in eastern Libya has risen to 11,300 dead, according to the United Nations, while official authorities and international organizations estimated that there are 10 thousand missing so far as efforts to find them intensify.

Egypt has two Mistral helicopter carriers, the first of which received the name "Gamal Abdel Nasser", in June of the year 2016, and then the second "Anwar Sadat", in September of the same year, from France, in a deal worth one billion dollars.

The displacement of the ship is about 21.5 thousand tons, it has the capacity to transport 16 heavy attack helicopters, or 35 light ones.

In addition to transporting 70 combat vehicles, including 13 main battle tanks or 40 tanks, other than mainly 450 personnel.

It includes 4 "specialized amphibious landing" vehicles, which transport personnel and vehicles from the ship to the shore and vice versa.

Mistral has a Marine Hospital spread over an area of 900 square meters, accommodating two operating rooms, attached to which is a radiology room equipped with the latest generation of radiation scanners for radiological scans.

The hospital also includes ultrasound imaging operations, a special dental department, 20 patient rooms, and 69 medical beds, including 7 beds dedicated to intensive care.

It includes a dedicated command center on an area of 850 meters, which can accommodate up to 150 command and staff personnel.

The command center contains the highly developed naval tactical information system, which is responsible for collecting information from all the ship's sensors for battle management, and satellite communication systems, which creates an integrated atmosphere for Command work.

It has a multi-tasking three-dimensional air and sea survey radar, capable of performing search, tracking, identification and classification tasks for all air and sea targets and identifying targets for weapons, and has the ability to resist intensive electronic jamming, and can monitor targets with a low radar cross-section such as mobile missiles.

It is possible to stay at sea up to 70 days by sailing using limited speeds.

The tasks of the Mistral-class warship include: carrying out sea landings, carrying out strategic sea transportation work, carrying out evacuation tasks and providing logistical support to the stricken areas, acting as a joint command center at sea, and conducting search and rescue work for lives at sea.

The former head of the Reconnaissance service and adviser at the Nasser Military Academy, Major General Nasr Salem, considered that what Egypt is doing towards Libya is a message of confirmation of their common destiny, as this is Cairo's national duty towards its brothers, especially that the decisions taken by the Egyptian President are an expression of the feeling of the entire people.

He added: "Egypt has previous experience in the field of relief, and therefore hastened to immediately provide assistance to the brothers in Libya after coordination with the Libyan authorities, the army chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Osama Askar, quickly went to coordinate the provision of all aspects of support to face the repercussions of the hurricane, and the opening of an air bridge to transfer logistical support began with 3 military aircraft carrying medical and food materials and 25 rescue crews.

Regarding the significance of sending the Mistral helicopter carrier to Libya, Salem explained that it was remarkable at the beginning of that crisis to equip Mistral to work as a field hospital, especially since it includes the presence of a field hospital as part of its main equipment, and it is capable of carrying a lot of search and relief aid and equipment, and its importance lies in the speed of transporting that aid through the sea, without any burdens on the Libyan authorities in the current circumstances.