China says it is set to evacuate its citizens from Yemen amid the ongoing chaotic situation in the Arab country following Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes.
Beijing has started preparatory work to remove Chinese nationals from Yemen, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the annual Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) conference in China's southern Hainan province on Sunday.
He noted that China launched the evacuation plan on Thursday following the Saudi-led aerial assaults against Shiite Houthi militants who began a seige on the capital Sanaa last September.
The top Chinese diplomat further estimated the number of Chinese citizens still in Yemen to be about 500.
The remarks come amid reports suggesting the docking of a Chinese warship in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Sunday to remove the diplomats and workers.
Meanwhile, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the Asian country received permission to begin its daily airlifts from Yemen.
“Today we got permission to fly from Sana'a for three hours a day. We will use the slot for evacuating our citizens every day,” she told the Press Trust of India.
The minister also stressed in her Twitter account that New Delhi was “doing everything” to evacuate Indians from the Arab country “at the earliest by all routes - land, sea and air.”
Furthermore, Shujaat Azim, an adviser to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said a Pakistan International Airlines flight carrying 503 passengers from the Yemeni city of al-Hudaydah had arrived in the Pakistani city of Karachi.
Saudi Arabia unleashed a series of air raids against the group on March 26 in an attempt to restore power to embattled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally to Riyadh.
Doctor Ali Sarieh, the director of medical emergencies at the Yemeni Health Ministry, told the official military news service, 26september, on Sunday that the Saudi aerial attacks on Yemen have killed 35 people and wounded 88 others.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement, but the Yemeni parliament did not approve the resignation.
The embattled president fled Aden to the Saudi capital city of Riyadh earlier this month after the Houthis pushed into Aden, where he had sought to set up a temporary governmental operations after the Shiite rebels seized control of Yemen's capital Sanaa.
The rebels first pushed into Sanaa last September and are now moving southward. They see Hadi's government as incapable of running the country and addressing a growing wave of corruption and terror.
Editor's note: This content has been edited from source material
