China faced mounting isolation from international travel curbs and flight suspensions on Saturday, with Russia to start pulling out its citizens next week, as the death toll from a spreading coronavirus outbreak rose to 259, Trend reports citing Reuters.
The epidemic has led to mass evacuations of foreign citizens as world airlines halt flights, and risks exacerbating a slowdown in growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
The Russian military was to start evacuating Russian citizens from China on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying the evacuations would be from regions that had been most affected by the outbreak.
Peskov first said that evacuation will start on Saturday but later corrected himself. Russia has already reported its first two cases of coronavirus and restricted direct flights to China.