Yemeni students marooned in China amid the coronavirus outbreak are set to be evacuated by the United Arab Emirates to a temporary quarantine area in the UAE, before they return to Yemen, Yemen’s Foreign Minister, Mohammed Al-Hadhrami, said on Wednesday. 

"We thank our sister United Arab Emirates for cooperating and assisting in the evacuation of our Yemeni students," Al-Hadhrami said, adding that arrangements are being made to welcome the scholars in the Emirates.

The evacuation is a rare example of cooperation between Abu Dhabi and Yemen's internationally recognized government. UAE-backed separatists have been challenging the Yemeni government for influence in Yemen's interim capital Aden and surrounding governorates for years.

Ahmed Jaber, Yemen's Ambassador to China, said on Tuesday that arrangements were underway to evacuate the students and their families. 

Yemeni students in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, where coronavirus was first discovered, said the embassy had asked them to provide lists of names and information for those wishing to be evacuated. One student told Almasdar Online on Tuesday that the destination for their evacuation would be the UAE. 

Nearly 187 Yemeni students and their families have been stranded in Wuhan after the Chinese authorities imposed a health ban following the outbreak of the contagious coronavirus, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives globally.