KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 31 — The government is now focusing on bringing back the 117 Malaysians from Wuhan in Hubei, China, following the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) declaration that the 2019 Novel Coronavirus outbreak is a global health emergency.
Malaysian Ambassador to China, Raja Datuk Nushirwan Zainal Abidin said all of them have been identified based on information received by the embassy including from the social media.
“We have identified 117 Malaysians in the province, so we will focus on bringing them home,” he said when contacted by Bernama today.
Nushirwan said the embassy had communicated with the Chinese Foreign Ministry representative today to discuss on flying Malaysians home with a commercial flight soon.
“As of now, our discussion with the Chinese government is constructive. We are just waiting for the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) to start the ball rolling,” he said.
Previously Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said that China has disallowed the use of military aircraft to evacuate Malaysians trapped in the province.
Nurishirwan said the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing had opened a 24-hour operation room for the past one week and had already contacted the Malaysians in the republic.
Currently there are 35,000 Malaysians in China with 25,000 residing in Hong Kong and 2,500 in Beijing while the rest are living in Hubei.
He also said that there were no Malaysian medical officers involved in treatment of the coronavirus patients at any hospital in China. — Bernama
