Seoul, March 15 (IANS) A South Korean military transport aircraft is bringing home 204 nationals from Saudi Arabia, officials said Sunday, in the first airlift evacuation using a military plane since the conflict began in the Middle East late last month.

A KC-330 Cygnus multirole aerial tanker carrying 204 South Koreans and seven foreign nationals departed from Riyadh on Saturday (local time) and is expected to land at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, south of the capital, on Sunday afternoon (Seoul time), Yonhap news agency reported.

The operation, codenamed “Desert Shine,” came as thousands of South Korean nationals remain stranded in the Middle East due to flight disruptions as the conflict between US-Israeli forces and Iran has escalated into a wider regional war.

Those aboard the Cygnus tanker had been staying in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia before traveling to Riyadh to board the military aircraft.

More than 140 of them were in Saudi Arabia, while 24 had come from Bahrain, 14 from Kuwait and 28 from Lebanon.

Among those on board were two Japanese nationals, along with one American, one Australian, one New Zealander, one Irish national and one Filipino national.

Seoul has asked at least 10 relevant countries to help secure flight routes for the military aircraft to safely return home from Riyadh, officials said.

Many Koreans have returned home from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar after the two Gulf countries accepted South Korea’s request to allow commercial and chartered flights to operate on a limited basis.

But it has become difficult for those remaining elsewhere in the region to find flights out of the countries, leading the government to mobilise a military aircraft to bring them home, a foreign ministry official said.

Seoul had reportedly sought to arrange flights through talks with airlines and other relevant parties in Saudi Arabia and at home but ultimately resorted to using a military plane due to safety concerns.

It is the seventh case in which military aircraft were sent to evacuate citizens from a conflict zone overseas. The last airlift took place in 2024, when a military plane brought back 96 South Koreans from Lebanon amid the armed clash between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

–IANS

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