The Blue Okavango is a humanitarian training exercise for SADC meant to prepare regional air forces for disaster interventions. Botswana Defence Force (BDF) hosted the exercise in the Ngamiland district. South Africa hosted the Blue cluster in 2011 and Angola the Blue Zambezi in 2013. The exercises are hosted on rotational bases in the region every two years. On Monday this week, air forces from the SADC countries taking part in the exercise begun the air distribution of 150 metric tonnes of assorted food for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Develoment (MLGRD). They delivered 60 metric tonnes of assorted food such as milk, Tsabana, Maluti, Sorghum, beans and cooking oil; which were distributed in the Shakawe area, 40 in the Gumare area and another 40 in the Maun area.
The air forces lifted 421 metric tonnes of the assorted food stuffs from Gaborone to Maun, from where the 150 tonnes were further distributed to the Maun general area. The MLGRD will further distribute the remaining 271 tonnes from Maun by road. Colonel Mothibedi Edwin, base commander of the air services at Shakawe operating base, briefed the media in Shakawe. He said 4,081 beneficiaries for clinics and 4,725 students in 12 villages in the shakawe area were to benefit from the airlift. The airlift is the biggest to be conducted by air so far. He explained that initiative to host the training exercises was taken to ready regional air forces for disasters. He explained that all the exercises are named ‘Blue’ taken from the light blue colour of the beret worn by officers of the air forces, and also to show that air forces operate in the blue skies. He said the previous exercise in Angola tackled real disaster save for the one in South Africa.
