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By Val Boje 
2h ago
For the past month, ambassadors and high commissioners have had only one thing in mind: how to help their citizens get home when the world’s borders are closed and commercial flights are suspended.
Sunday marked a milestone in the search for European Union ambassadors to repatriate tourists and others who needed to return to the 27 EU member countries, with the last KLM charter flight leaving OR Tambo for Schiphol, Amsterdam.
Speaking at the Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria, the meeting point for around 280 travelers, the Netherlands Ambassador to SA Han Peter said this was the last of six organized flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to Dutch and European citizens.
The complex coordination task, which she said had occupied ambassadors for the past month, was led by the EU ambassador, Dr. Riina Kionka, in close collaboration with ambassadors from various EU countries in South Africa.
Alongside Ambassadors Peter and Kionka in the expulsion were Belgian Ambassador Didier Vanderhasselt, French Ambassador Aurélien Lechevallier, and Swedish Ambassador Cecilia Julin, and officials from all EU states whose citizens were among the group.
Peter said that most of the people booked on the last flight had been visiting South Africa during the holidays when the closure was announced, and some had traveled to Pretoria from other regions. They were processed at the embassy and boarded in 12 buses to the airport.
The repatriation negotiations involved tracing citizens, obtaining flights, and obtaining various permits from the Department of International Relations, Dirco.
Peter said an additional challenge for today’s flight had been bringing 80 travelers to the rendezvous point from Namibia and Botswana, and permits for those traveling from other provinces like KwaZulu-Natal.
With the last group on the way home, a total of 1600 Dutch citizens and another 700 European citizens have been repatriated since the first flight on April 8. This excludes a number of flights organized by the German Embassy.
Many other countries have participated in the repatriation, with 10 charter flights to the UK alone.
Meanwhile, the repatriation of up to 4,000 South Africans continues. This week, a flight returned from Saudi Arabia, and today, a SAA charter flight will take place from Perth with another from Melbourne on Tuesday to bring back South Africans who have been trapped in Australia since the closure began on March 27.
Pretoria News
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