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PETALING JAYA: Nearly 50 Malaysians who arrived from the United Kingdom (UK) were stranded at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) amid confusion among authorities and claims that there were no hotel rooms to quarantine them.
Passengers who arrived around 6.30am on Monday (September 7) said that when they disembarked, they were prevented from reaching immigration counters despite having letters of approval from the Malaysian High Commissioner in the UK.
Passenger Jolene Yap said there was confusion from the airline and immigration authorities over whether Malaysians could be allowed into the country.
“At first, we were detained because ground crews were not sure whether Malaysians were allowed entry under the new ruling.
“After hours of waiting (almost six hours), an official from the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) said that they could not find hotel rooms to quarantine us.
“Then he gave us all hotel numbers and told us that we should try to reserve our own hotel room.
“Even though we all called the same list of numbers, the hotels told us, when we managed to get through, that only Nadma can reserve rooms for quarantine and we cannot.
“They have given us a detour and we are all tired from the long flight,” said Yap, who was very angry.
He said there were also other groups in the same situation at KLIA.
At press time, Nadma’s chief of operations Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said that some of the 200 had been transferred to quarantine stations, while hotel rooms had been found for others.
“We had problems before because the number of quarantined hotels was lower and yesterday there was a sudden influx of arrivals. Usually 500 people arrive daily, but yesterday, in view of the deadline, there were more than 1,000 arrivals. On top of that , in the morning, hotels had to wait for their customers to check out before they could book these arrivals, “said Datuk Hussein when contacted.
As of Monday, the government imposed a ban on citizens of 23 countries from entering Malaysia, including the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, Peru, Colombia, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Iran, Bangladesh and the Kingdom. United.
Also on the list are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, France, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Iraq, the Philippines and Indonesia.
On September 3, the government announced that it will impose an entry ban on citizens of countries that register more than 150,000 cases of Covid-19 as of September 7.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government will add more high-risk countries to the list and their citizens will not be allowed to enter the country.
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