Hundreds of Jordanians in Ukraine flee crisis, expatriate association head says

On Sunday alone, 100 Jordanian residents of Ukraine crossed borders to European countries on Sunday

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Hundreds of Jordanians in Ukraine are making their way to the western border with Europe.

But some of the kingdom’s 5,000 citizens in the country may choose to stay, the head of the Jordanian expatriates’ association in Ukraine said on Sunday.

Kamel Awamleh, head of the association, said by phone from Kiev that most of those fleeing lived in the capital and other large Ukrainian cities that have been the main target of Russian attacks in recent days.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said 100 Jordanians had crossed Ukraine’s land borders to Slovakia, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Romania on Sunday.

Eight of the 100 had since arrived in Jordan’s capital, Amman, by plane.

The ministry said that about 700 Jordanian students were studying in Ukraine when the Russian ground and aerial assault began last week.

It said it had sent diplomats to European countries bordering Ukraine from the west to meet fleeing citizens and help them return to Jordan.

“Those outside the big population centres are less inclined to leave,” Mr Awamleh said by phone.

Jordan and Ukraine have diplomatic relations and the country has been a main destination for Jordanian students studying abroad, even before it declared independence, following the break-up of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

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