Operation Gabriel

Operation Gabriel was the codename for the British Miliary mission in Rwanda as part of the UN Assistance Mission UNAMIR.

Right after Rwanda’s brutal civil war and the genocide that followed, approximately 650 UK crew from 5 Brigade accompanied the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) as a division of Operation GABRIEL.

On July 30th, five days after getting ready in Aldershoot, the advance elements of the contingent, led by the CO 5 Airborne Brigade Logistic Battalion entered the Kigali airports on the fringes of the capital. They arrived after 100 days of battle and murder which took the lives of approximately one million men, women, and children.

23 Parachute Field Ambulance RAMC swiftly set up primary health clinics for the helpless refugees and fortified the country's three operating hospitals with environmental health teams and surgical teams to stop the expansion of disease inside the filthy and horrid refugee camps. After being stationed in the North of Rwanda for a month, 23 PFA were re-deployed by the Force Commander, Canadian Major General Romeo Dallaire, to stop the unpredicted mass evacuation of refugees into Zaire, located at the Southern end of Lake Kivu. 23 PFA came to the aid of over 125,000 civilians over the 4 month deployment.

Rwanda had a sensible framework for that area in Africa, but was destroyed after the conflict. The sappers of 9 Parachute Squadron RE labored to enhance and preserve crucial road routes and give sufficient sanitary arrangements for the distant refugee camps. Devising construction materials, they restored village clinics, re-connected power supplies to towns and replaced various strategic river crossings ruined in earlier conflict. This was all to motivate the refugees to come back from camps where their lives were in danger.

The instantaneous and widespread administration of aid was facilitated by 63 Airborne Close Support Squadron RLC. Soldiers deployed to remote locations carrying 1,500 tonnes of aid and moving 20,000 refugees in their brief time in theatre. The war and roads had depleted much of the UN's fleet of utility, armored, and transport vehicles and equipment, which had been left behind all across Rwanda.

Infantry protection was given by A Company 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales Royal Regiment over the course of deployment. Additional Contingent Units consisted of detachment from 30 Signal Regiment, 29 Movement Control Regiment, 49 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), RE, 9 Supply Regiment, 160 Provost Company and the Specialist Team Royal Engineers (STRE).

5 Airborne Brigade's service in Operation Gabriel lasted until November 1994, when it was removed. Out of it came eleven honors, including the Wilkinson Sword of Peace, granted to acknowledge the achievement of the group of units from 5 Airborne Brigade.