Maldives military on Saturday admitted that 50 Indian soldiers are stationed in the island nation with the two helicopters gifted by the Indian government.
Speaking during a press conference on Saturday Principal Director of Coastguard Lieutenant Mohammed Saleem said that the Indian soldiers maintaining the two aircraft are on rotation basis.
He said that after the soldiers have stayed here for their required term, they are replaced by new soldiers, without specifying the term of service.
"Generally our figure is 50 soldiers. But we don’t always have an exact amount here since sometimes people tend to come and go inside a group of people as large as this”, Saleem explained.
The country's Chief of the defense force has stated before that there are around 30 technical staff maintaining an individual helicopter at any given time.
Saleem revealed Saturday that staff from the companies that manufactured the aircraft stay occasionally for tune-up operations.
He further stated that the Indian government has offered to train local pilots to operate the choppers.
