By Naira Bulghadarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Around 200 more Armenians stranded in the United Arab Emirates due to Iran’s war with the United States and Israel have returned to Yerevan in recent days, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said on March 6.
“On March 4-5, a total of 197 people with Armenian passports returned to Armenia from the UAE on two flights operated by FlyDubai airline,” the ministry spokeswoman, Ani Badalyan, said, adding that 45 others will be flown to Yerevan later in the day.
In a separate social media post, Badalyan said that in the last three days the Armenian Embassy in Abu Dhabi has helped to evacuate another 190 Armenians from the UAE to neighboring Oman. More than a hundred others were flown out of the Omani capital Muscat earlier this week on two flights carried out by the Armenian airline Fly One. The latter charged each of them over $1,200 for the trip home.
Thousands of regular flights to and from the Middle East have been canceled since the start on Saturday of US and Israeli air strikes against the Islamic Republic that provoked Iranian retaliation. The cancellations reportedly left 20,000 passengers stranded in the UAE alone. They include hundreds of Armenian nationals who arrived in the UAE as tourists or for connecting flights to or from third countries.
According to Badalyan, 170 Armenians, among them 30 students, remained in the UAE as of the evening of March 6. The official said the Armenian mission there is maintaining contact with them “on an individual or group basis.”
