Winding Evacuation From Chernihiv Successfully Carried Out: 11 Indonesian Citizens Are In Polish Safe Zone, Waiting For Return To Indonesia

Director of Protection for Indonesian Citizens of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Judha Nugraha with Indonesian citizens who were evacuated while in a car crossing the Ukrainian border to Poland. (Source: Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

JAKARTA - Foreign Minister Retno confirmed that nine Indonesian citizens trapped in Chernihiv, Ukraine, were successfully evacuated to Poland on Friday.

"Alhamdulillah, after going through very hard and long efforts, we managed to evacuate nine Indonesian citizens from Chernihiv," said Foreign Minister Retno in a virtual press statement Friday evening, March 18.

Meanwhile, Director of Protection for Indonesian Citizens, Judha Nugraha, who directly supervised the evacuation process, said that he and his entourage had just crossed the Ukrainian border with Poland.

"Alhamdulillah, we have just crossed the border on the Polish-Ukrainian border," said Judha from the evacuation vehicle with Indonesian citizens.

Judha further said that the priority of the Indonesian government is security and safety. According to him, evacuation will not be carried out if the situation is not safe.

"The waiting time, the safe time, is quite long. If it is calculated from February 24, it takes 22 days to wait for the safe time," he said.

He added, with the successful evacuation of nine Indonesian citizens from Chernihiv, a total of 11 Indonesian citizens are currently in the Polish safe zone. Those who will then undergo a medical examination, before being flown to Indonesia on 20 March.

With today's evacuation, a total of 133 Indonesian citizens in Ukraine were successfully evacuated. Meanwhile, 23 others chose to stay because they were married to Ukrainian citizens and the other nine were essential staff of the Indonesian Embassy in Kyiv currently operating from Lviv.