"This night, we saw off a rescue task force team to evacuate Indonesian citizens in Yemen," Supriatna stated at the Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base in East Jakarta.
The team comprises 16 personnel of the National Defense Forces (TNI) and six officials of the Foreign Ministry. They left for Yemen on board an Indonesian Air Force (TNI AU) Boeing 737-600 aircraft.
The Air Force Chief of Staff remarked that the task force team would evacuate Indonesian citizens to the safe area of Salalah in Oman.
"We will first evacuate them to the safest place (in Yemen) before they are flown to Oman. Soon after they have arrived in Oman, we will evaluate the citizens to the safest among the three locations there," he said.
He noted that the Indonesian task force team would coordinate with their counterparts from other countries to find the safest route to evacuate the Indonesian citizens in Yemen.
Indonesia is intensifying efforts to evacuate its citizens out of Yemen due to the deteriorating situation in the Middle Eastern nation.
TNI Chief General Moeldoko earlier stated that the Boeing 373-600 would evacuate thousands of Indonesians out of Yemen to a temporary command post in Saudi Arabia. After all the Indonesians are gathered, they would be repatriated to Indonesia by commercial flights.
Moeldoko said the TNI team would also evacuate Indonesian citizens in Yemen by sea.
"Some of them are staying around Aden Bay. They must be evacuated by ship to Djibouti from where they will be repatriated by plane. We have coordinated with the Indian government and related parties," he revealed.
Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi earlier stated that there were some 4,159 citizens in Yemen, including 2,626 students, 1,488 professional workers in oil and gas companies, and 45 embassy staff and their families in Sanaa.
"Most of them live in the eastern regions of Yemen," she pointed out.
According to the minister, the Indonesian government, through the evacuation task force set up by her office, had informed and approached citizens in Yemen to register themselves for evacuation since February.
A total of 148 citizens had been evacuated and brought back to Indonesia in March, she affirmed.
On Wednesday, the National Police also dispatched an evacuation task force to Yemen to assist in the evacuation of Indonesians out of the country.
The evacuation task force, which comprises five policemen and two policewomen, is a combination of personnel from several units of the Police Headquarters, such as the International Relations Division (Divhubinter), the Security Maintenance Agency (Baharkam), the Intelligence and Security Agency, the Police Education Institute (Lemdikpol), and the Police Medical Team.
"They will be deployed for at least 14 days, and their service period will be adjusted in accordance with the developing situation in Yemen," Chief of the Public Information Bureau (Karopenmas) Brigadier General Agus Rianto stated here on Tuesday. (*)
(S012/INE)
Reported by Syaiful Hakim
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
Copyright © ANTARA 2015
