Sources: Egypt begins airlift to return thousands of stranded people in Kuwait after “riots”

Sources at Cairo airport said that on Tuesday morning, an EgyptAir-owned plane departed for Kuwait at the start of an airlift to return the thousands of Egyptians stranded there, following riots at Egyptian worker centers in the Kuwaiti capital to protest the long waiting times to return them to their country.

The sources said in press releases that returning Egyptians will be transferred to some university towns to spend a 14-day quarantine period as a precautionary measure against the Corona virus.

The sources said, at the Cairo airport, that the first flight left this morning, and that “more than 300 Egyptians will be stranded in Kuwait, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where priority will be given to women, children and old men returning stranded. “

The sources added that a second plane will leave for Kuwait today “to return more than 300 stranded people, where they will be medically examined and transferred to Al-Azhar university cities for a period of 14 days.”

The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry had said early Monday morning that the security services dissolved “riots and chaos” for several Egyptians in designated shelters for violators of the residence law who were asking the Egyptian authorities to return them to their country, noting that representatives of the Egyptian embassy in Kuwait attended the site They informed their citizens that they will proceed to prepare the schedules of the return flights and will evacuate them to their country this week.

The ministry added that several protesters were captured and “transferred to the jurisdiction to take legal action against them.”

The airlift to return the stranded in Kuwait is part of the flights excluded from the decision to suspend international flights in Egypt that have been in place since March 19 to counter the Corona virus, and the air flights that Egypt began on April 21 to return Egyptians stranded abroad.

During the last period, the Ministry of Tourism, in coordination with the Ministry of Health, assigned 11 hotels and a tourist village in Marsa Alam in the southern Red Sea to receive Egyptians returning from abroad to be quarantined for 14 days to make sure they are free of the Corona virus.