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Jakarta offers relief flights for diaspora amid rising Myanmar violence. But no evacuation...yet
The Foreign Ministry has advised some 370 remaining Indonesian citizens in Myanmar either to avoid going out or to come home on the relief flights it has arranged, though the citizen protection director says the situation is still "relatively safe" despite the rising number of casualties among Myanmar protesters.
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Myanmar police stand near makeshift barricades protesters set up in Hlaing Tharyar township, Yangon, during a crackdown on demonstrations against the military coup on March 14, 2021. (Agence France Presse/Str)
T
he government has advised all Indonesian citizens without an urgent reason to remain in Myanmar to consider taking relief flights home amid the latest spate of violence that has seen security forces kill dozens of civilian protesters in the neighboring country.
Pro-democracy protesters have refused to back down in spite of the military junta’s increasing use of force in recent weeks, less than two months since the military coup ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected civilian government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry’s citizen protection director, Judha Nugraha, has insisted that current conditions are relatively safe for Indonesian residents in Myanmar.
“There may have been several demonstrations and the imposition of martial law in several areas where [Indonesian citizens] live, but there have been no direct attacks on Indonesian citizens,” Judha said after a meeting with Indonesian diaspora and officials from the Indonesian Embassy in Yangon on Monday.
Myanmar state broadcaster MRTV has announced that martial law was imposed in parts of Yangon, which means that military commanders in the country’s main commercial hub have taken over district administration, including the courts.
Judha said that evacuation was not an urgent need at present, but he also advised that Indonesians without essential purposes should consider repatriating on the relief flights operated by Singapore Airlines and Myanmar Airlines.
“Currently, 52 Indonesian citizens have returned home using the relief flights,” he said in a statement released on Tuesday.
