On 17 May 1978, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) of the French Foreign Legion was put on alert to prepare to be sent to the Katanga province of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the country located in central Africa, to rescue the hundreds of European hostages captured by a group of some 1,500 Katangese rebels in the city of Kolwezi and to drive out the rebels from the city.

See the data + images of the Battle of Kolwezi of 1978.