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Turkey evacuates 230, including 45 foreigners, from Yemen

Xinhua, April 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Turkey evacuated 230 people, including 45 foreigners, from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

A Turkish plane carrying 230 people took off from Sanaa International Airport on Sunday morning en route to Istanbul, the minister wrote on his Twitter account.

He added that a group of 45 foreigners were evacuated upon their country's request for Ankara's help.

On Friday, a Turkish naval vessel evacuated 55 Turks from the Yemeni port city of Aden to Djibouti where they took a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.

Security has sharply deteriorated in Yemen since early March when a conflict erupted in several provinces in the country's southern regions.

The Shiite Houthi group launched attacks on Aden city, which Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi declared as the temporary capital after he fled weeks of house arrest by the Houthis in the capital Sanaa.

A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes on Houthi targets in Sanaa and other cities, saying the multinational action was to protect Hadi's legitimacy and force the Houthis to retreat from cities it seized since September 2014. Endit