Ministry Of Foreign Affairs: 116 Indonesian Citizens Choose To Stay In Lebanon

Director of Protection of Indonesian Citizens and BHI Ministry of Foreign Affairs Judha Nugraha (Azmi Samsul Maarif)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said as many as 116 Indonesian citizens (WNI) chose to stay in Lebanon despite local security conditions in a state of emergency.

"There are still 116 people, who still live in Lebanon. The majority of them choose to stay there for personal reasons," said Director of Protection for Indonesian Citizens and BHI of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Judha Nugraha, as reported by ANTARA, Monday, October 7.

He revealed that of the hundreds of Indonesian citizens who are known to be still alive, they consist of students and migrant workers. They reasoned to choose to stay in Lebanon because they were still undergoing education and the relationship between work contracts in the country.

"Of the 116 who are still in Lebanon, they are Indonesian citizens who are married to local residents. The second is students, students who study in Lebanon and the third is migrant workers," he explained.

However, the Indonesian government will continue to strive to repatriate all its citizens to provide protection in accordance with Law Number 37 of 1999, which is the responsibility of the state to evacuate and save citizens from dangerous areas.

"However, the choice to participate in the evacuation or not is of course the choice of each individual. So we do not force Indonesian citizens to participate in the evacuation," he said.

In this case, Judha said, if his party had succeeded in repatriating 40 Indonesian citizens (WNI) and one Foreign Citizen (WNA) from Lebanon in a safe and smooth manner. In the evacuation stage at 40 Indonesian citizens, it consisted of 38 adults, two children.

"In addition, there is one foreigner from Lebanon, who is the wife of one of our Indonesian citizens who came home," he said.

Of the dozens of Indonesian citizens who entered the fifth wave at the evacuation stage from Jordan, there were two flying groups (cluters).

Where, he continued, for the first group consisting of 20 people and one Indonesian citizen, had traveled from Amman, Jordan using Qatar Airways QR967 with arrival at 07.49 WIB.

"The return of Indonesian citizens from Lebanon has arrived for the fifth wave. A total of 20 Indonesian citizens and one foreigner used Qatar Airways QR967 at 07.49 WIB," he said.

Then, followed by the second batch, which consisted of 20 people with arrivals at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Tangerang, Banten at 15.30 WIB.

"Alhamdulillah, we have arrived in Indonesia, of these 41 people are part of the process of evacuating Indonesian citizens by land which is complex and long from Berut to Damascus and then to Amman and we fly them to Indonesia," he said.

"The difficulties faced were first from the side that there were still many of our citizens who chose to stay in Lebanon. And there were also Indonesian citizens who were detained in Lebanese Immigration, but we all lived it and in the end we got to Indonesia," he added.

He said, for the total number of Indonesian citizens who could be evacuated by the Indonesian government, a total of 65 people were counted since the decision of the emergency status by the Indonesian Embassy on August 4, 2024. However, so far there are 116 Indonesian citizens who still live in Lebanon.