December 17, 2024
JAKARTA – The second group of citizens to be evacuated from Syria have arrived back in Indonesia this week, while the Foreign Ministry continues to collect the data of others who want to repatriate amid the uncertain conditions in the Middle Eastern country following the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad’s leadership.
Thirty Indonesians, mostly women, were evacuated on Friday by land from the Syrian capital Damascus to the Lebanese capital of Beirut, before boarding a commercial flight bound for Jakarta. The group arrived on Sunday night at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, from where they continued their journey to return to their hometowns on Java and Sulawesi, as well as in Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara.
Last week, 35 Indonesians arrived at Soekarno-Hatta in the first batch of citizens to be repatriated from the war-torn country.
A total of 1,162 Indonesians resided in Syria, mostly migrant workers in Damascus, when rebel forces led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group seized the capital nine days ago.
Jakarta has since imposed the highest emergency alert status on the Mideast country that borders Lebanon and Israel to the west.
The government evacuates its citizens from conflict zones only on a consensual basis, and many Indonesians decline repatriation, typically because of they are married to a resident of the departure country.
“Some 83 other Indonesians have indicated their desire to be evacuated. We will continue gathering the data of those willing to return home,” Judha Nugraha, citizen protection director at the Foreign Ministry, told a press conference on Monday.
Jakarta once again advised caution for its citizens in Syria, urging them to limit unnecessary movements, avoid crowds and maintain communication with the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus.
“The ministry and the embassy continue to monitor the situation in Syria, which so far remains dynamic, including after Israel’s incursion into Syria,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Read also: Indonesia to evacuate more citizens from Syria
The Israeli military launched an operation in southern Syrian on the same day the Assad government fell to rebel forces, citing an aim to establish a “sterile defense zone”, Reuters reported on Dec. 11.
Countries have been evacuating their citizens since early last week amid the ongoing uncertainty in Syria, where HTS is now in control after claiming key cities including the capital.
India reportedly evacuated 77 citizens last week, including 44 pilgrims who were stranded in Set Zaynab, a city some 10 kilometers south of Damascus.
HTS and its allied rebel groups captured the Syrian capital on Dec. 8, effectively toppling the Assad family that had been in power since 1971.
Assad, who assumed the presidency from his father in 2000, has fled with his family to Moscow, where he was granted asylum on humanitarian grounds from his longtime ally, Russia.
The sudden fall of the Assad regime this month came after more than a decade of a civil war, which was sparked by its violent crackdown on anti-government protests that erupted in 2011.
Russia said it had evacuated some of its diplomatic staff from Syria by a special air force flight on Sunday, exactly a week after Assad’s ouster, AFP reported. The flight also carried members of the diplomatic missions of Belarus and North Korea.