Apr 4, 2015, SPA -- Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri, consultant at the minister of defense's office and spokesman of the Coalition forces, stressed today that when the coalition forces are formed due to political directives of the coalition states, they are fully aware of their responsibilities towards the Yemeni people and the security and safety in the region.
In today's daily briefing, which he held at Riyadh airbase, Brig. Asiri confirmed that "one of the most important of these responsibilities is the human side", pointing out that the newspapers and the media outlets dealt with, during the past few days, the issues of evacuating foreigners from Yemen and facilitating humanitarian assistance for the Yemeni people.
Brig. Asiri highlighted that the command already called, since the first day, all sides to communicate with the work teams and the official bodies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the coalition states to facilitate their measurements (of evacuation).
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20:47 LOCAL TIME 17:47 GMT
There are logical reasons to facilitate relief works and foreigners' evacuation procedures, he said, confirming that these works don not interfere with other operations underway, at the same locations, consequently, it would not jeopardize them, however, these relief and evacuation works are verified to be sure that they are moving on the right path and being delivered to the pertinent people, not the terrorist groups, similarly and coincidently taking place to be sure that they are nationals not loyal to Houthi militia commanders.
These are normal measurements, as there was contacts with a number of countries which announced willingness to evacuee their nationals, systematically in co-ordination with the coalition command, pointing to the items echoed by the media outlets are not accurate, because of the lack of factual information, adding that the coalition command is proud and to its pleasure to provide media men with these information, he said.
Evacuation is taking place through coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other parties with interest, emphasizing that the coalition command constituted today a committee to accelerate the process for only recognized humanitarian organizations, to shut the door in the face of non-recognized ones, Assiri affirmed, asking media men to be in contact with this committee on the numbers shown, in addition to a dedicated email on the Ministry of Defense website, for online follow up of the process.
Task Teams at the ministry are in contact with legal as well as humanitarian authorities to be ascertained of carrying their missions, out, Assiri confirmed, drawing the attention to the falsehood of news reported by some news agencies of hindrance of Red Cross missions, reiterating that its flights are running as set for Sunday and that there are no stalling, at all. He made clear that some change has been made by the Red Cross, itself, related to shipments delivery, changing of spots and the stations departure of which the aircrafts will take off from.
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22:52 LOCAL TIME 19:52 GMT
Brig. Asiri said the foreigners who were evacuated since the start of operations are from Russia, India, Algeria, Indonesia and Pakistan while there are still scheduled flights for tomorrow and after tomorrow for states and non-governmental organizations, UNICEF, China, Djibouti, Egypt and Sudan.'
'The Red Cross will provide two relief aircraft heading for Yemen and the time of arrival was identified. The requests of the United Nations, Germany, the European Union, Pakistan, Canada, Jordan and Iraq are under procedure either because they did not identify a point of the aircraft's arrival or do not specify a date of arrival,' Asiri added.
Brig. Asiri stressed that some Arab countries desired to implement evacuation to Jazan Airport by land and from there to their states.
'The foreigners are to be evacuated to Jazan then a country determines an appropriate way to take them to their countries,' he added, calling upon countries and non-governmental organizations to respect and comply with the time set by the coalition forces in order to ensure evacuation process under safe circumstances.
Brig. Asiri said 'we communicated with the Red Cross which specified a flight and time,' pointing out that the coalition is found only to serve and rescue the Yemeni people.
Brig. Asiri stressed that the evacuation process has three goals, political until the circumstances are appropriate, military to be implemented in accordance with the safety of the aircrafts' crew and reaching to the right people, confirming that the Houthi militias at most of the time are disrupting action at the airports because they are controlling the airports until now.
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22:59 LOCAL TIME 19:59 GMT
