China and India lead rescue of foreign nationals, including Americans, trapped in Yemen

Ishaan Tharoor
Washington Post
Wed, 08 Apr 2015 00:00 UTC

© Indian Air Force via AFP

This undated photograph shows Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen sitting in an Indian Air Force plane in Djibouti before being flown to Mumbai.

Yemen is in the midst of a spiraling crisis. A Saudi-led bombing campaign against the country's Houthi rebels has led to stark warnings of a looming humanitarian disaster. Food is running out, the water supply is dwindling, and hundreds of Yemeni civilians have perished.

Things are also tough for foreign nationals trapped in the escalating conflict. The Saudi-led offensive has virtually caused all flights in and out of the country to be canceled; main seaports are either blockaded or in the midst of battles between rival militias. Embassies have been shuttered.

More so than any other nation, India has taken the lead in the rescue of foreigners trapped in Yemen, evacuating more than 550 foreigners from 32 countries, including a dozen Americans and three Pakistanis.

© Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

An Indian evacuee from Yemen hugs her son after arriving at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai on April 6, 2015.

An Indian evacuee from Yemen hugs her son after arriving at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai on April 6, 2015.

The vast majority of the about 4,000 Indian nationals in Yemen, many of them nurses, appear to have been evacuated. Indian efforts wheeled into motion last week, anchored by a government team deployed in the tiny Red Sea state of Djibouti. Here's a picture of the team, tweeted by India's top Foreign Ministry spokesman.

It involved combined air, sea and rail operations. India's coordination and presence was such that the U.S. Embassy advised American nationals to seek Indian assistance to leave Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which is now under rebel control and has come under heavy bombardment by the Saudi-led coalition.

© EPA

Indian expatriates line up at a port in the city of Hodeida, Yemen, on April 6, 2015, as they wait for their evacuation.

© Rafiq Maqbool/AP

A woman, left, greets a relative who arrived at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai on April 2, 2015, after being evacuated from Yemen.

The scale of the Indian effort has spurred a fair amount of pride and triumphalism among Indians on social media, which you can find under the #YemenEvacuation hashtag.

It's also led to a moment of bonhomie between India and archrival Pakistan. On Wednesday, Indian officials acknowledged that authorities in Islamabad had arranged for the evacuation of 11 Indians aboard a Pakistani naval vessel and flew them on a special plane from Karachi to India.

"It was a very positive, good, generous gesture," Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. "They've taken great trouble to do something, and we need to appreciate that."

Comment:

Rescue Mission in Yemen Proves to Be Boon for Chinese Military's Image

Chinese military experts are engaging in a bit of exuberant backslapping over the naval evacuation not just of more than 600 Chinese citizens in Yemen, but of hundreds of other foreigners. It was the first time China had deployed warships to carry out such an evacuation, and the fact that so many people from other countries were welcomed on board and ferried to safety was seen as polishing the country's image as a helpful hand in an international crisis.

"It is the new responsibility of a great power," Zhu Feng, executive director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, said on Wednesday. "China's vision of the navy is decisively widening. When it is operating in international waters, it should shoulder international responsibility. It's good, it's good."

The state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday that three Chinese Navy ships had evacuated 629 Chinese and 279 citizens of 15 other countries.

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The last group of Chinese left Yemen on Monday on the naval frigate Linyi. The ship, which carried 38 Chinese evacuees and 45 Sri Lankans, arrived in Djibouti on Tuesday after a 12-hour voyage, Xinhua reported. Another Chinese ship, the Weishanhu, arrived on Tuesday in Oman with nine Chinese evacuees and one from Japan.

Germans, Ethiopians and Pakistanis were among those evacuated by the Chinese. The Japanese government thanked China for inviting a Japanese tourist to join the evacuation.

"We have conveyed our gratitude to the Chinese government," the Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said at a news conference on Tuesday. The Chinese had taken the Japanese tourist on board voluntarily and had not been requested to do so by the Japanese government, Mr. Suga said.
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When a ship pulls into a country to evacuate its own citizens from danger, there are no fixed rules on whether it has a legal responsibility to rescue other foreigners as well, several Western military experts said. But it certainly is expected that people stranded with little hope of escaping a conflict should be taken on board, they said.

"They're getting bigger and more professional," said a United States Navy official of the Chinese operation, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. "It's good for them and good for us because it binds them into the international system."