Beijing (ANTARA) - The Republic of Indonesian Embassy in Beijing has issued an official statement letter containing a call for Indonesian citizens across China to return home if they have no essential reasons to keep staying to help them get rid of the impacts of deadly novel coronavirus outbreak.

The official statement letter was dated on January 29, 2020, and signed by Coordinator of the Protocol and Consular Affairs at the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing Ichsan Firdaus.

"We issue the statement letter for Indonesian citizens, especially students who are keen to get back to Indonesia," Ichsan Firdaus told ANTARA in Beijing, China's capital city, on Thursday evening.

The official statement letter was issued to meet the requests of Indonesian students in several Chinese cities because they could not leave their campus areas after the university authorities locked the university exit gates, he said.

"Several universities do not allow their students to return home. They will let them leave the campus areas if the campus authority gets an official letter from the Indonesian Embassy," he said, adding that the statement letter was written in Mandarin and Indonesian languages.

Following the issuance of the official statement letter, the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing appeals to the university authorities in China to allow their Indonesian students to leave their campus and help them get access to reach nearest airports.

At present, university students across China are in semester break but many Indonesian students choose to keep staying in the country until the deadly coronavirus struck Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province which has been put on lockdown by the Chinese Government.

This situation has made many Indonesian students currently staying in China keen to return Indonesia.

As of Thursday morning, this new coronavirus had killed 170 people and positively infected 7,736 other people as well as suspectedly infected 12,167 others in China.

Chinese authorities declared the first case of coronavirus after a person with pneumonia was hospitalized in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, according to an official statement of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Over the past weeks, people, with symptoms of pneumonia and reported travel history to Wuhan, had been identified at international airports.