Hundreds more Chinese citizens evacuated by the navy from war-torn Yemen

China said on Tuesday that it had evacuated more than 500 of its citizens from Yemen amid the growing violence in the Middle Eastern country.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that 449 Chinese nationals left Yemen on Monday evening aboard naval ships.

They were headed for Djibouti on the heels of an additional 122 who arrived in the Horn of Africa nation on Sunday.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said the 449 Chinese and six people of other unspecified nationalities who left the Yemeni coastal city of Al-Hodayda had arrived in Djibouti, which is directly across the southern tip of the Red Sea from Yemen.

The ministry said the 571 Chinese will return home soon.

The three Chinese navy ships had been carrying out escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters and were diverted to the port of Aden to carry out the evacuations, state media reported, marking only the second time Chinese military assets have been used in such a mission.