Former foreign minister Hasan Wirayudha in his capacity as head of the government`s team for the evacuation of Indonesians from Egypt said here Thursday that at first the conflict in Egypt was between the government and the people but now it had become a horizontal one.
If the horizontal confrontation continued, the Egyptian people would no longer be able to live in a situation of public order and security, Hasan said.
If the turmoil dragged on, the Egyptian economy would eventually stagnate, and therefore, Indonesian citizens living there, including students, needed to be evacuated and repatriated as soon as possible, Hasan said.
The government would be in charge of the evacuation and repatriation process until they were home safely, he said.
On Wednesday, some 411 Indonesians evacuated from Egypt had arrived at Jakarta`s Soekarno Hatta International Airport and been sent to their respective hometowns or picked up by relatives.
To help the returning evacuees, the evacuation team was cooperating with the Transportation Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Health Ministry and Religious Affairs Ministry. The Hajj Dormitory at Pondok Gede in east Jakarta was being used to provide the evacuees with remporary accommodations.
According to the team`s data, on Wednesday there were 291 evacuees at the Hajj Dormitory and 125 of them would be sent to their respective hometowns with help from the the transportation ministry. They were university students from Aceh (16) , Medan (28), Padang (30 ), Pekanbaru (15), Jambi (1), Lampung (3 ), East Java (8), Banjarmasin (7 ), Makassar (10 ), Gorontalo (3 ) and Mataram (2 ).
Nurlaila, one of the evacuees who had been living in Nasr City, said conditions in the city had deteriorated with the streets full of troops. The situation was worsened by the escape of 2,900 prisoners of whom only 326 could be rearrested.(*)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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