DUSHANBE, April 6, 2015, Asia-Plus — Another 70 Tajik nationals have been evacuated from Yemen by Russian emergencies ministry plane.
Mohammad Egamzod, a spokesman of the Tajik Embassy in Moscow, says aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations carrying another 70 Tajik nationals evacuated from Yemen, including 14 children, landed at the Chkalovsk airfield in the Moscow Oblast on April 5.
According to him, seven Tajik medical workers are currently in Aden and they cannot go to Sanaa. “Therefore, we advised them to use sea route to get to Saudi Arabia,” Egamzod noted.
He further added that according to some information, there are some 50 nationals of some CIS nations, including 12 Tajiks, are in the Hadhramawt province of Yemen.
The first 17 Tajik nationals were evacuated from Yemen by planes of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations on April 3.
We will recall that Abdulfayz Atoyev, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan, told Asia-Plus on March 31 that many Tajik medical workers working in Yemen do not want to leave the country, “because they are quite satisfied with conditions existing there.”
According to him, employees of Tajik diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia are currently engaged in resolving issues related to relocating Tajik nationals in Yemen to safer areas before returning them home.
“The majority of our medical workers in Yemen are working in rural areas that are located far from the conflict sites,” said Atoyev. “They told employees of our embassy by phone that they do not feel threat to their lives and health. They are satisfied with their job and receive wage in time. Therefore, they do not want to leave Yemen.”
The Tajik MFA said on March 27 that Tajik Embassy in Qatar is trying to relocate Tajik nationals in Yemen to safer areas before returning them home with the help of Russian authorities and companies.
Davron Muhammadiyev, IFRC Regional Representative in Russia, said on March 30 that some one thousand Tajik nationals – specialists and their families – are now in Yemen.
Five Gulf states, Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco and several other Sunni Muslim countries launched a series of airstrikes against the Shia Houthi rebels, who had gained control of the capital and large swathes of territory in the west of the country on March 25.
Neighboring Saudi Arabia, has taken full control of the country’s air and sea ports, purportedly to prevent the inflow of weapons from abroad. Riyadh has openly accused its regional arch-rival Iran of funding the rebels, and fomenting unrest in the country of 25 million people.
