MPs have asked foreign affairs minister Bert Koenders to explain how his department has managed to lose track of a number of Dutch nationals in Yemen who want to return home.

Koenders told parliament in a briefing earlier this week that there has been no contact with ‘several’ Dutch nationals because they may have left the country or been ‘unable to communicate for other reasons’.

So far 40 Dutch nationals have been evacuated from Yemen with the help of other countries. The Netherlands does not run its own evacuation programme.

Officials are in contact with just one other person, compared with six in June and eight in May but those who are ‘missing’ have not been evacuated. ‘How can that be. What has happened to them?’ D66 parliamentarian Sjoerd Sjoerdsma is quoted as saying by website nu.nl.

MPs now want the minister to explain what has been done to keep in contact with people still waiting to leave, nu.nl said.