The first ship departed Sunday morning from the southern island of Hainan, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It also said that 16 critically injured Chinese were airlifted from Vietnam early Sunday aboard a chartered medical flight.
More than 3,000 Chinese have already been pulled out from Vietnam following the riots this past week that left two Chinese dead and injured about 100 others, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Vietnam has protested China’s positioning of the oil rig in the South China Sea on May 1 and sent ships to confront China’s vessels, setting off a tense standoff. After allowing anti-China protests last weekend, Vietnam’s authorities quickly clamped down on further demonstrations after the public anger against China boiled over into riots, the most serious to hit Vietnam in years.
Dozens of factories close to southern Ho Chi Minh City were trashed. In central Vietnam, a 1,000-strong mob stormed a steel mill, killing two Chinese workers and wounding hundreds more. Along with the Chinese, hundreds of Taiwanese people have fled the country by land and air.