The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia is preparing a Cabinet of Ministers order to ensure flights by the Latvian national airline airBaltic for the repatriation of Latvian citizens stranded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
During the evacuation, priority will be given to vulnerable individuals and families with children.
However, specific dates for the evacuation flight are not known – neither to those being evacuated nor to the evacuators themselves.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges that the further development of the situation in the Middle East is difficult to predict, so each traveler must carefully assess the necessity of their trip.
According to information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, 676 citizens have registered short-term trips to the region in the Consular Register. The largest number, 576 individuals, are in the UAE, 30 in Israel, 25 in Qatar, 21 in Oman, eight in Kuwait, six in Saudi Arabia, and five each in Bahrain and Jordan.
The airspace over Middle Eastern countries, except for Oman, remains closed, and air raid alerts are regularly announced, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that other EU member states are also actively considering ways to help their citizens leave the region. As reported, on Saturday, Israel and the United States began strikes against Iran, resulting in missile attacks that affected the capital Tehran and other cities. Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel, as well as against U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and other Persian Gulf countries.
Since the onset of the attacks, 787 people have died in Iran as a result of strikes by Israel and the United States, the Iranian Red Crescent reported on Tuesday. There are casualties among citizens of the United States, Israel, and other countries.
