During summer 2016, the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13e DBLE) of the French Foreign Legion would leave the United Arab Emirates to be stationed in mainland France.
4e RE: Training at CENTAC 2016
Currently, around 600 legionnaires from the 4th Foreign Regiment (4e RE), the training unit of the French Foreign Legion consisting of about 1,600 men now and based at Castelnaudary (southern France), are participating in military training at CENTAC (Combat Training Center), placed at Camp de Mailly, the base of the 5th Dragoon Regiment (5e RD).
Foreign Legion Operations: January 2016
See the official list of deployments of the French Foreign Legion units and their logistical support infrastructure outside of France, in operational areas around the world, in January 2016.
40th anniversary of the Loyada Rescue Mission
In February 1976 legionnaires of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) and the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13e DBLE) were involved in the rescue of 31 children in Loayada, a village on the border between today’s Djibouti and Somalia. The children were kidnapped in Djibouti, capital of the then French Territory of Afars and Issas (TFAI, formerly French Somaliland, today’s Djibouti), by four rebels from the Somali Coast Liberation Front (Front de Libération de la Côte des Somalis, FLCS), a pan-Somali guerrilla organization created in the 1960s and supported by the Somali government.
34th anniversary of the Mont Garbi accident
February 3. This day marks the 34th anniversary of the Mont Garbi accident, in which 29 members of the French Foreign Legion were killed, including a whole platoon of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP). The accident occurred in Djibouti, Africa. For the Legion, the 3rd February 1982 remains the most tragic day since the end of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954).