A UAE Sandhurst Alumni Association was established in mid-May to bring together Emirati and other locally-based graduates of Britain’s premier military institution, the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, RMAS.

The new body was launched at a reception held at the British Embassy, attended by over 80 Emirati graduates, including both serving officers and others who have retired or who have moved on to other careers. A similar number of British Sandhurst graduates also attended the reception, all of whom are working in the UAE, many serving on secondment or on contract with the UAE armed forces but others in fields ranging from the oil industry to training and public relations.

The event was attended by the Commandant of the RMAS, Major-General David Rutherford Jones, and the UAE Deputy Chief of Staff, Major-General Saeed Mohammed Al Rumaithi, and was hosted by Ambassador Edward Oakden.

Since 1974, a total of 198 Emiratis have graduated from Sandhurst, including H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, who graduated in April1979, and nearly forty other members of the UAE’s ruling families. This is the second-largest total of graduates from foreign countries, after Malaysia, and the UAE is expected soon to rise to the top spot for foreign graduates, underlining the continuing close relationship between the armed forces of Britain and the Emirates.

Among the graduates in the latest batch are Sheikh Zayed bin Hamdan bin Zayed and Sulafa al Marouqi, one of the few Emirati women to have attended Sandhurst, both of whom attended the reception. Sulafa is now working as a doctor at the Zayed Military Hospital.

At this year’s graduation ceremony, it was announced that Abu Dhabi is to fund a new hall of residence for cadets at Sandhurst. It is to be named the Sheikh Zayed Hall, in memory of the UAE’s founding father and as a signal of the UAE’s appreciation of the long-standing relationship between the two countries.