Tajik officials say they have asked Russian authorities to help evacuate some 100 Tajik medical workers and their families from Yemen as a Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes there.
Tajikistan's Foreign Ministry said on March 27 that its embassy in Qatar "is trying to relocate Tajik citizens in Yemen to safer areas before returning them home with the help of Russian authorities and companies."
The ministry said most Tajik doctors and nurses working in Yemen went there under contracts obtained through Russian companies.
Tajikistan had repeatedly urged its citizens to leave Yemen as the Arabian Peninsula country was plunged into chaos amid the Huthi Shi'ite takeover of the capital and other areas, but medical workers ignored the warning, the ministry said.
A Tajik nurse was kidnapped and held captive for nearly four months in southern Yemen by a group seeking ransom and a prisoner exchange with Yemeni authorities. She returned home in February.