CAIRO – 7 May 2020: An exceptional flight is set to land in Egypt’s Marsa Alam International Airport, carrying around 160 stranded Egyptians from Chad and Ghana, a source at the airport told Egypt Today, as Egyptian authorities vowed to repatriate stranded nationals amid the coronavirus crisis.
The airport, in the southeast of Egypt, received on Wednesday a plane coming from Juba carrying 35 Egyptian nationals who were stranded by the novel virus, state’s news agency MENA reported.
Quarantine teams of the Red Sea Health Directorate received the passengers to conduct medical check-ups before taking them to their residence in a Marsa Alam hotel where they will spend 14 days in quarantine.
Since the coronavirus crisis started, EgyptAir, the Egyptian flag carrier, has operated many exceptional flights to several countries, including the US, UK, Maldives, Kuwait and Kenya, to bring back stranded Egyptians abroad.
All the passengers would undergo the necessary preventive procedures, including being tested for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and being quarantined for two weeks once they arrive at the airport, the source noted.
On April 22nd, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi noted that around 3,500 Egyptians are stranded abroad over coronavirus, affirming that authorities are committed to bringing them back despite “hard circumstances”.