A Ukrainian plane, used for the evacuation of the country’s people stranded in Afghanistan, has been taken to Iran by a group of armed hijackers.
According to Russian News Agency TASS, the plane was hijacked after it arrived in Afghanistan last week.
“Last Sunday, our plane was hijacked by other people. On Tuesday, the plane was practically stolen from us, with an unidentified group of passengers onboard instead of airlifting Ukrainians,” the report quoted Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister Yevgeny Yenin as saying.
Yenin also claimed their next three evacuation attempts were also not successful as their people could not get into the airport.
The deputy foreign minister of Ukraine, however, did not report anything about what happened to the plane or whether Kiev would seek to get it back or how the Ukrainian citizens got back from Kabul.
A military transport plane with 83 people onboard, including 31 Ukrainians, arrived from Afghanistan to Kiev on Sunday, according to a TASS report,
Tehran and Kiev, howver, have denied hijacking of any Ukrainian evacuation plane in Afghanistan, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Iranian Civil Aviation Authority also denied the report saying that the plane refuelled in Mashhad and then flew to Kiev.