Ankara, April 3 (IANS) Turkey has evacuated 55 citizens who were stranded in conflict-hit Yemen, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
The minister said on his Twitter account that the Turkish citizens were transported on Friday from Yemen’s Aden to Djibouti by a Turkish Naval Forces’ frigate, Xinhua news agency reported.
Cavusoglu added that they would be brought to Turkey from Djibouti by a Turkish Airways airplane.
Security sharply deteriorated in Yemen since early March when conflict erupted in several provinces in the country’s southern regions.
The Shia Houthi group launched attacks on Aden city, which Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi declared as the temporary capital after he fled weeks of house arrest by the Houthis in the capital Sanaa.
On March 26, a Saudi-led coalition started airstrikes on Houthi targets in Sanaa and other cities, saying the multinational action was to protect Hadi’s legitimacy and force the Houthis to retreat from cities it seized since September 2014.