Ministry: One thousand Croats returned from the Middle East

More than a thousand Croats have been returned from the Middle East in recent days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday, and reiterated its recommendation to Croatian citizens not to travel to the Middle East until further notice.

Since interest in organizing additional repatriation flights from the Middle East has decreased as regular air routes are gradually being restored, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommends that Croatian citizens with permanent residence in the countries of that region use available commercial flights.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' services in the field will remain on standby and continue to monitor the needs of Croatian citizens in the field, who are advised to follow the instructions of local authorities. Others are recommended to avoid all travel to the area until further notice, as well as to avoid transit flights over the aforementioned area, as air traffic may be suspended at any time due to the war that the US and Israel launched against Iran at the end of February.

By Sunday evening, the government had organized or facilitated the return of a total of 845 Croatian citizens from the Middle East to their homeland, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that around 1,000 have returned in total, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Monday.

The majority of them were transported from Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, 594 of them, and the rest from cities in Israel or Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in operations that enabled the return of all Croatian citizens who expressed a desire to leave the crisis area, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Croatian citizens were also repatriated on flights in cooperation with Austria, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Italy, and many countries from the European Union and neighboring countries have also contacted Croatia to help them transport their citizens, according to the ministry.

Due to the large number of canceled and delayed flights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises all passengers to inform themselves about their rights in air traffic on the websites of the Croatian Civil Aviation Agency and the European Commission.

“It is important to point out that the greatest need for repatriation was from the United Arab Emirates and that our Consulate General in Dubai was very busy, under pressure, but in the end a great job was done. A total of 971 passengers were evacuated, 870 Croatian citizens, 101 foreign citizens from 30 countries,” said Gordan Grlić Radman, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs.

Source: HRT