Iran war
Government starts evacuation of Germans in Middle East
Updated March 2, 2026 – 2:51 p.mReading time: 1 min.
The federal government is preparing to repatriate Germans from the Middle East. Tourists stranded there could be flown out with Lufthansa aircraft.
Germans in the Middle East could be flown back to Germany via the airports in Muscat in Oman and in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul announced in Berlin. According to him, these evacuation flights are to be carried out by Lufthansa. Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr assured the Foreign Minister that the airline basically had the necessary capacity.
The Foreign Office is currently assuming a mid-five-digit number of affected German citizens in the region. The number of around 30,000 people given by the travel industry is “a reasonably reliable figure,” a spokesman said on Monday. In the evacuation flights that are now starting, “particularly vulnerable people” should be flown out first, explained Wadephul.
A Lufthansa spokesman told t-online on Monday: “We can confirm that the stranded German tourists are being flown out of the Middle East. But I can’t give you concrete information about flights yet. Our CEO Carsten Spohr has just spoken to the Foreign Minister.”
Foreign Minister Wadephul ruled out a military evacuation of German citizens. “The Bundeswehr is really the last resort,” said a Defense Ministry spokesman. According to a spokesman, the Foreign Office is supporting German citizens in all ways possible and is in “very close contact” with the travel industry.
