JAKARTA: Nearly two dozen Indonesians repatriated from Iran arrived home on Tuesday (March 10), recalling the terror of falling bombs in the Islamic republic as the Middle East descended into conflict.
The group of 22 people is the first brought back to Indonesia by the government, having been evacuated over land from Iran to Azerbaijan before flying on to Jakarta.
Zulfanlindan, who was stuck in Iran for 10 days, sheltering at the Indonesian embassy in Tehran, said the situation in the capital was dire.
"Ten bombs flew over the embassy, and they exploded just one or two kilometres away, so powerful that the windows in the embassy shook," recounted the 69-year-old, who like many Indonesians has only one name.
Thousands of Iranians had been taking to the streets every night to condemn and mourn the killing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes, he told reporters at Jakarta's main airport.
Zulfanlindan said the group waited five hours for immigration clearance in Tehran before making a roughly nine-hour trip by road to the Azerbaijani border.
In the Azerbaijani capital Baku, "it only took one hour before we headed straight into the city and checked into the hotel," he said.
Attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran, and Tehran's retaliatory strikes in Middle East, have caused flight cancellations and airspace closures that have stranded large numbers of foreigners.
They include 329 Indonesians in Iran, most of them students in the central city of Qom.
"This afternoon we are welcoming our brothers and sisters back," Foreign Minister Sugiono said at the airport.
He said 10 more Indonesians were set to arrive on Wednesday, and another 36 have registered to be repatriated in a later wave.
'Deep sorrow'
Muhammad Jawad, who was a student in Iran, also said Khamenei's killing had been met with great sadness and anger in Tehran.
"It is entirely natural that the people of Iran feel such deep sorrow and are so deeply shaken by his martyrdom and passing," said the youngster.
Jakarta said last week it was not considering evacuations from other Middle Eastern countries where some half a million Indonesians live.
There have been no reports of Indonesians killed since the conflict broke out at the end of February, but three Indonesian crew members are missing after a United Arab Emirates-flagged tugboat sank in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.
One Indonesian survivor was receiving burns treatment at a hospital in the Omani city of Khasab, according to the foreign ministry.
President Prabowo Subianto has volunteered to act as a mediator between Iran on the one hand and the United States and Israel on the other.
On Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister said talks with the United States were not on the agenda, after President Donald Trump said the conflict would end "soon". - AFP
