The civilian aircraft chartered by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office left Wuhan at 9:45am, the government said in a notice on its Web site. “We know how distressing the situation has been for those waiting to leave,” British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab said in the notice. The flight had been expected to depart Wuhan on Thursday morning with about 150 British citizens and 50 non-British nationals, but its departure was blocked by Chinese officials. Some British citizens have reportedly said they were told that they could not take family members with Chinese passports out of the city. A British government spokesman said that any citizens who were eligible for the flight would be given a seat, but nationals already infected would not be allowed to leave Wuhan.
