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Hi everyone, Navy Reconmission editorial team is glad to see you again
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I'm right here in front of the Leopold multipurpose frigate to cover a unique event
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Indeed, the defence minister, Philippe Gauffin, will be visiting the diving centre here in Zembrouge
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The diving school is part of the land component and provides diving training for all divers
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in the army. During his visit, the Belgian Minister of Defence, Philippe Gauffin, was introduced
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to the various diving specialties such as engineers, navy divers, deminers, special
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forces and search and rescue divers. Good afternoon, I'm captain Philippe Gauffin, I'm the commander of the diving school and
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today we have the visit of the MOD, so the Minister of Defence
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He's visiting today the diving community. So the diving community in the Belgian military exists of some more components than only the
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navy and Dovo. So we have, first of all, here in Zembrouge, we have the company of Dovo from Zembrouge
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There we have the clearance divers. The clearance divers are divers who go to an explosive underwater to clear the explosive
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to search it, to find it, to disrupt it. Afterwards, we have also the divers from the GENIE
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So the GENIE are the assault divers. Assault divers are meant to do their operation with their, so they use their transportation
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mill to get somewhere diving and then do an operation right there
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So also the special forces have combat divers. Combat divers of the special forces are more in the operational context
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Then further on, we have the search and rescue, which are stationed in the flight base Coxiet
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So there they are responsible for all the accidents on the sea
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So when there is an accident on sea, a SAR helicopter, search and rescue helicopter
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will go on sea and the diver from the helicopter will go down and rescue this person
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After that, the minister attended a demonstration of divers training in the hyperbaric wet pods
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As well as an introduction to diving in the swimming pool of the center
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So this afternoon, I came here to Zébru
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To get to know the divers of the Defense, which also has a very important role
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So we are more or less 150 divers. So it's an important force for us, which is unknown to the general public
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And you know that in the context of my various visits, I try to highlight the different
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professions of the Defense. They are important, I have already said it often. Belgian defense is respected in international theaters
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It is in particular thanks to an important expertise and my presence here first of all
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attests to the interest of the government for what the Defense does, but also to the
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will of the government to highlight the different professions of the Defense and our expertise
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which are important, as I said, recognized both in Belgium and abroad
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And perhaps precisely in Belgium, we do not know all our capacities enough. So this is also a way to make them known
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From the latter group, the minister was able to attend a demonstration during which a droning
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person was rescued by NH-19 helicopters crew members. The visit ended up with an overflight of mine countermeasures vessels, currently conducting
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a large-scale international mine clearance exercise of the Belgian coast. Under the expert guidance of Captain Klauert, the minister was given more information about
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the deployment, importance and objectives of the sandy coast exercise. After a short stopover at the base, the helicopter continued its return flight to Brussels
