A total of 252 Mongolian citizens returned home on Wednesday night from Turkey on a chartered flight, bringing the total number of Mongolian nationals evacuated from virus-hit countries to 982, D.Tsogtbaatar, Minister of Foreign Affairs reported on Thursday.

Mongolia has been evacuating it citizens since 15 March on chartered flights from virus-hit countries, including South Korea and Japan as well as European.

Meanwhile, the Mongolian Government and State Emergency Commission are considering evacuating citizens who have no way of returning home from abroad by sending additional chartered flights. Ways of doing this are being studied.

Unfortunately, five Mongolian citizens who returned on chartered flights from Seoul and Berlin were confirmed as having coronavirus. Two people returned from Seoul and one person from France via Berlin on a March 16 evacuation flight also tested positive. A 30-year old woman who flew in on the same evacuation flight from Berlin was tested positive on coronavirus on 17 March while being under quarantine. She reportedly came from Italy via Germany.

Mongolia first reported Covid-19 case on 10 March as a 57-year old French national who tested positive for coronavirus several days after arriving in the country from France on 2 March.