The Saudi Arabian government is assisting in the process of taking Malaysian students out of Egypt, and who are now being accommodated at the Minadatul Hujaj transit centre in Jeddah.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Jamil Khir Baharom said the Saudi Arabian government had agreed to allow two aircraft belonging to the Saudi Airlines to be used to assist in speeding up the process of taking the students back to Malaysia.

"The Saudi Arabian government has kindly given us two mercy flights using two of their 747 jumbo jets from the Saudi Airlines," he told Bernama when met in Jeddah.

Meanwhile, the first flight from Jeddah using Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Boeing 747 carrying the first batch of 450 students was expected to depart this afternoon and arriving at the KL International Airport (KLIA) on Monday.

He said so far there were 3,615 Malaysian students at the Madinatul Hujaj and they would be sent home in stages.

Meanwhile, the Political Secretary to the Prime Minister, Shahlan Ismail praised the attitude of the Malaysian students who remained patient and maintained strong discipline during the operation to evacuate them from Cairo to Jeddah.

He said it was certainly not easy to evacuate the remaining 9,000 Malaysian students from Egypt to Jeddah and it required careful planning.

"I also notice the courage and wisdom of the Malaysian students in getting through the road blocks which were set up by members of the public instead of the military or police (along the way to the Cairo airport).

"Some of the food that we had brought for our students at the airport were seized on three occasions. But eventually, we looked for other routes which could by-pass the road blocks and we succeeded. Actually, these were the challenges that we faced because they were not within our control," he said.

In Kangar, Perlis Menteri Besar Md Isa Sabu said 64 of the 129 Perlis students in Egypt had been evacuated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday.

- Bernama