Turks in Kiev, Kharkiv evacuated via trains

KIEV

Turkey’s embassies in Ukraine’s capital Kiev and the second-largest city Kharkiv have announced that the second evacuation process was actualized on Feb. 28, highlighting that hundreds of Turkish citizens have left Ukraine with trains via Romania.

The first train carrying Turkish citizens departed from Kiev at 7 p.m. on Feb. 28, while the second train left Kharkiv at 8 p.m.

The trains will arrive at Cernăuți County in Romania on early March 1.

The first group of some 250 Turks that were evacuated from Ukraine’s Odessa province on Feb. 25 entered Turkey from the northwestern province of Edirne with five buses on late Feb. 27.

“The situation in Ukraine is very bad. I do not feel good while talking about it,” Yasin Şahin said, adding that he was happy to be back in his homeland.

“We left everything behind. We hope that the war will be over soon,” İlhan Yılmaz, the head of a Turkish company operating in Odessa, told Demirören News Agency.

Separately, Turkey’s national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) planned some additional flights to Romania on late Feb. 28.

Due to the high demand emerging after the Ukraine crisis, “we have added some extra flights to Romania,” THY said in a statement.

There were around 20,000 Turkish nationals in Ukraine, and 5,000 of them returned to Turkey shortly before the conflict broke out.