Nearly 600 Vietnamese people fleeing from war-torn Ukraine to Poland and Romania were safely returned home by two Viet Nam Airlines flights on March 13, bringing the total number of Vietnamese in Ukraine repatriated so far to over 1,100.

Vietnamese in Ukraine arrive in Ha Noi after a long flight (Photo: VNA)

They are the first two repatriation flights operated under an agreement between national flag carrier Viet Nam Airlines and Sun Group in which the later covers the entire cost for the arrangement of the flights.

The flight from Poland’s Warsaw with 288 passengers on board arrived at Ha Noi’s Noi Bai International Airport at 9:30am. The other from Romania’s Bucharest landed at the airport at 11:00am, carrying 291 people. Many of the passengers were children aged under 18, the elderly and pregnant women.

The Vietnamese embassies in Poland and Romania cooperated with Vietnamese associations in those countries to help the evacuees travel to the airports and complete pre-departure procedures.

The first two repatriated flights, funded by the State, brought back to Vietnam 287 people on March 8 and 300 others on March 10.

As of 4:00pm on March 12, more than 4,500 Vietnamese people had been evacuated from Ukraine to neighbouring countries. They included some 950 to Romania, 2,800 to Poland, 660 to Hungary, nearly 130 to Slovakia and over 40 to Russia.

The Vietnamese missions are busy cooperating with local authorities and multiple Vietnamese associations to arrange travel and temporary accommodations and provide food for the evacuees and help them resolve paper issues and fulfill required legal steps to prepare for the next flights home.

On March 12, another 23 Vietnamese expats leaving Ukraine were flown home from Russia. They were provided with support from the Embassy of Viet Nam in Russia to flee to the Russian cities of Voronhez and Rostove on Don earlier this month.

At the direction of Vietnamese Ambassador to Ukraine Nguyen Hong Thach, the Vietnamese Honorary Consular Office in Odessa has worked with Ukraine authorities and got their permission to release two Vietnamese detained for illegal migration from a detention centre located in Nhikolaiev province near Kherson, where fierce fighting is taking place. The two were taken to Lang Sen, Odessa and will be arranged to travel to a third country before boarding a flight to Viet Nam.

Source: VNA