Six Hungarians, family members on board Russian plane leaving Kazakhstan

Six Hungarians and their family members are on board of the Russian defence ministry’s airplane that took off from Kazakhstan’s Almaty airport, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Monday morning, shortly after the plane’s departure.

A seventh Hungarian, who holds dual citizenship, decided against leaving the country, Szijjártó said on Facebook.

The minister noted that

the Hungarians trapped in Almaty, where the airport is still closed for commercial flights, were evacuated with help of the Russian foreign ministry according to an agreement he made with Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, on Sunday.

The airplane is taking Hungarians to Russia from where they will be taken to Hungary by a plane of the Hungarian armed forces, Szijjártó said.

As we wrote before, a Hungarian man got stuck with his wife and two children in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The man reported that they were sleeping in clothes, ready to flee. He also said that they wanted to break into their home at one point. Details HERE.

Two Hungarians wishing to return from Kazakhstan to Hungary were set to leave that country on Saturday, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs told public media, details HERE.

Almaty and other cities in Kazakhstan calm after violent protests, but authorities say ‘counterterrorist operation’ still under way. As The Guardian reports says, authorities in Kazakhstan have said 164 people were killed in the unrest that rocked the country in the past week, including three children. 103 of the deaths were in Almaty, the country’s largest city and the centre of the violence, the health ministry said.

Source: MTI