Indonesia Begins Evacuating 329 Citizens from Iran as War Enters Its Second Week

The Evacuation Begins

Indonesia started evacuating its citizens from Iran on Friday, March 6, as the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic entered its second week with no signs of abating.

Heni Hamidah, the foreign ministry official responsible for overseas citizen welfare, told reporters in Jakarta that the evacuation will proceed in phases, beginning with a route through Azerbaijan.

"The evacuation of Indonesian citizens in Iran will begin gradually today, and this first phase will be carried out via Azerbaijan," Hamidah said. A first batch of 32 Indonesians is expected to arrive in Jakarta on March 9 or 10.

She declined to confirm whether the evacuation would be conducted entirely overland. "Evacuation routes will be determined based on the conditions on the ground," she said — a diplomatic acknowledgment that with Iranian airspace closed and airports damaged by strikes, there are no simple options.

Who Is Stranded?

There are 329 Indonesian citizens currently in Iran, the vast majority of them students in the city of Qom — a center of Islamic scholarship that has long attracted Indonesian theological students. Many had been pursuing religious studies for years when the war erupted on February 28.

Qom itself has not been a primary target of US-Israeli strikes, which have concentrated on military installations, nuclear facilities, and government infrastructure in Tehran and other major cities. But the closure of Iranian airspace and the general breakdown of transport infrastructure have made departure impossible through normal channels.

The students and other residents face daily disruptions: power outages, communication blackouts during heavy bombardment periods, and anxiety about the war's trajectory. Several Indonesian students in Qom have posted on social media describing the sounds of distant explosions and the eerie quiet of a country under sustained aerial assault.

The Broader Picture

The 329 Indonesians in Iran are a fraction of the country's overseas population in the Middle East. More than 519,000 Indonesian nationals live across the region — the majority as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and other Gulf states.

The foreign ministry said it is not currently planning evacuations from other Middle Eastern countries, despite Iranian missile strikes hitting Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in recent days. The calculation appears to be that the Gulf states, while under attack, still have functioning civilian infrastructure and airports — unlike Iran, where the entire country has become a war zone.

The 58,000 Indonesian pilgrims stranded in Saudi Arabia — who were performing Umrah when the war closed regional airspace — remain a separate humanitarian challenge. The government has been working with Saudi authorities to arrange charter flights, with some pilgrims already returned home.

The Diplomatic Awkwardness

The evacuation carries an undercurrent of diplomatic tension. President Prabowo Subianto has positioned himself as a potential mediator in the conflict, offering Indonesia's services to help broker peace. But Iran's ambassador to Indonesia, Mohammad Boroujerdi, publicly rejected the offer last week, telling reporters that Tehran would not negotiate "with a country that launched hostility against us" — a reference to the US, whose Board of Peace Indonesia has joined.

The ambassador's words were widely interpreted as a rebuke of Indonesia's alignment with Washington through the Board of Peace, which Prabowo joined as deputy commander of the International Stabilization Force for Gaza. The rejection highlights the impossible position Indonesia has placed itself in: trying to be both a US ally and a neutral mediator in a war the US is actively waging.

Meanwhile, pressure continues to mount domestically for Indonesia to withdraw from the Board of Peace entirely. The MUI, Muhammadiyah, retired military leaders, and civil society groups have all demanded an exit, arguing that continued membership is incompatible with Indonesia's constitutional mandate for an independent foreign policy.

The Route Through Azerbaijan

The choice of Azerbaijan as the evacuation route is significant. Iran's western border with Turkey is closer to Qom, but the recent Iranian drone strikes on Azerbaijan's Fuzuli Airport — and Azerbaijan's own tensions with Iran — make the route through the Caucasus both practical and politically charged.

The overland journey from Qom to Azerbaijan's border is approximately 600 kilometers, crossing through Iran's northwestern provinces. From Azerbaijan, evacuees would likely fly commercially to Jakarta via Istanbul or Dubai — assuming those air corridors remain open.

The logistics are complicated by the fact that much of Iran's road network in the north has been affected by the conflict. Fuel shortages, military checkpoints, and the general fog of war make any overland journey inherently risky.

Half a Million at Risk

While the immediate focus is on the 329 citizens in Iran, the war's expansion raises uncomfortable questions about the half-million Indonesians across the wider region.

Iranian missile strikes have already hit civilian areas in Bahrain and Qatar. If the conflict continues to escalate — and Iran's foreign minister Araghchi has explicitly refused to negotiate — the risk to Indonesian workers in Gulf states grows.

Indonesia's migrant worker population in the Middle East is overwhelmingly composed of domestic workers, many of whom lack the resources or documentation to arrange their own evacuation. A full-scale regional emergency would require a massive government response that Indonesia's diplomatic infrastructure may not be equipped to handle.

For now, the government is taking it one evacuation at a time. Thirty-two citizens first. Three hundred more to follow. And the hope that the war doesn't force a much larger operation.