The head of Djibouti, Mr. Ismail Omar Guelleh, has sponsored  at the air base a ceremony of receipt of two new aircraft y-12 intended to strengthen the capacity of the army of the djiboutian air.

A Y-12E aircraft.Djibouti’s Air Force has taken delivery of two Y-12 transport aircraft from China, joining an MA60 that was delivered two years ago, and is operating Dauphin helicopters.

The two Harbin Y-12Es were delivered in a ceremony on 13 July. According to Djibouti’s La Nation, President Ismail Omar Guelleh presided over the delivery, along with defence minister Ali Hassan Bahdon and Chief of General Staff of the Djiboutian Armed Forces (FAD), General Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim.

The ceremony of receipt of these new aircraft has seen the presence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed, minister of defence, Mr. Ali Hassan Bahdon, the chief of general staff of the fad, General Zakaria Cheick Ibrahim, members of the government and Parliament, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited to Djibouti.

The Y-12 is a copy of The Twin Otter, designed by de Havilland Canada, formerly owned by a UK company of the same name and The Twin Otter went out of production in 1988. In China the current variation of the Y-12 started life as a development of the Harbin Y-11 airframe. It was first called Y-11T in 1980.