Nearly 9,000 Turks evacuated from Ukraine: FM

ANKARA

Turkey has evacuated nearly 9,000 citizens from Ukraine, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said.

“With the latest 404 citizens, the number of Turkish nationals evacuated from Ukraine has reached some 8,454,” Çavuşoğlu announced late March 2 on his Twitter account.

The minister highlighted that the latest group arrived at the country with Turkish Airlines flights from Warsaw, Poland, and Bucharest, Romania.

The Foreign Ministry is also conducting train services between Ukraine’s two main cities, Kiev and Kharkiv, and the Cernăuți region on the Romanian border.

The latest trains carrying Turkish citizens from Kiev and Kharkiv reached the border early March 3 and the people were transferred to Romania via buses.

“The days in Ukraine were tough,” one of the evacuees told İhlas News Agency.

“After the Russian invasion [on Feb. 24], I went to Kiev to find my son. I did. We are going back to Turkey now,” another evacuee said.

Among the evacuees was an Azerbaijani citizen too. “I am a student in Kiev. I got out of the country with the help of Turkey,” he said.

The evacuation efforts are being conducted by officials of the Turkish Consulate in Odessa, Ukraine. “We have taken around 2,000 Turkish citizens out of Ukraine in two days,” an official said.