After Tweet Seeking Help, Sushma Says Can't Evacuate Indians In Yemen

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday made it clear in a series of tweets that India has had to shut down its embassy in war-torn Yemen and that it will not possible to evacuate any more Indians from the Arab nation.

Ms Swaraj said this in response to a tweet from a person who stated that a woman from Hyderabad along with her children was stuck in Hajjah, 127 km from Yemen's capital Sanaa, after her husband divorced her and left for the United States.  

"We evacuated more than 4,500 Indians and over 2,500 foreigners from Yemen," Ms Swaraj tweeted adding that the Indian government had made repeated requests calling upon Indian to leave Yemen.

"We had to close our embassy in Sanaa due to the situation prevailing there," she said, adding that some people chose to stay back despite being repeatedly advised by the Indian embassy to choose otherwise.

"Some of those evacuated, returned to Yemen. We don't have our Embassy there. It is a war-torn situation. We are not in a position to evacuate people from Yemen at this stage."

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Yemen is under attack from a Saudi Arabia-led Arab coalition after a coup by Houthi rebels ousted the local government in 2015. The ensuing 16-month civil war has killed more than 6,500 people and displaced more than 2.5 million people.

 

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