The aircraft took off from Cam Ranh International Airport near the central resort town of Nha Trang with tourists who had come from Tomsk and Kemerovo in Siberia and the Altai Republic, Russian news agency TASS reported.

They had been traveling in Vietnam and stranded after all flights were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over 3,000 foreign tourists are stuck in Vietnam but only 11 percent of them wish to go home immediately.

Cities and provinces had been asked to report to the government about the number of foreign tourists before April 14 so that relevant agencies could liaise with foreign embassies to repatriate them.

The Thai embassy plans to send 100 people from Hanoi and HCMC by a charter flight on Wednesday.

The Philippine embassy repatriated 143 people last Saturday.

Last week more than 100 British tourists in Vietnam and Cambodia were sent home by a Vietnam Airlines flight as were more than 50 Italians stranded in Vietnam.

Vietnam prohibited entry for foreign nationals from March 22 and Vietnamese carriers suspended international flights on March 25.

The country has reported no new Covid-19 cases since last Thursday, and the current patient count is 52. There have been no deaths.

The pandemic has claimed more than 177,600 lives and spread to 210 countries and territories.