The Foreign Ministry has said 12 Maldivian nationals remain stranded in Ukraine and that efforts are ongoing to evacuate them to Western Ukraine.
While Russia has declared war on Ukraine, Ukrainian forces are battling Russian troops on the streets of Ukraine's city Kharkiv, where eight Maldivians remain.
In a press conference held by the ministry on Sunday, Deputy Minister Abdulla Humaid said the latest updates show 12 Maldivians are still in Ukraine. In addition to the eight Maldivians in Kharkiv, a Maldivian national is in Dnipro. The ministry on Saturday night received information of a Maldivian national's Ukrainian wife and the couple's two children in Kyiv, he added.
The deputy minister said the government is working on transporting them to western Ukraine near the Hungarian border. However, as the distance is long, and due to the current situation, the arrangements have not been facilitated thus far, he said.
'It is difficult for us to give a specific date on which they will be taken to the border,' he added.
Humaid said 15 Maldivians who were evacuated to Hungary from Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk are currently in the Hungarian capital, Budapest. They will travel to the Maldives sometime today, he said.
Humaid said Maldivian students in Russia and Belarus are doing well.
