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Since the morning of this Thursday, the Portuguese Government has had a team of four people queuing in the English Channel, on the British side. In addition to the deputy consul, there are three more employees of the Portuguese consulate who distribute water and food to the approximately 300 Portuguese truck drivers detained at the site.
“Since 7 am they are on the ground providing support to people in queues,” Berta Nunes, Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities, told Expresso. Faced with criticism for the delay in the action of the Portuguese Executive, the Secretary of State explains that it was due to the fact that the British authorities have reported that the situation would be resolved more quickly than it is currently. “The process is being very slow. I know there are people [camionistas portugueses] that have already been tested and are following the path It’s taking longer because of course the testing started at the frontier to unlock and whoever is at the end may not have noticed the differences yet. “
Berta Nunes adds that the biggest problem continues to be the lack of information, especially since “many people don’t speak English”. “So another problem is that people can’t get out of the queues to get tested,” he says.
In the blockade of the English Channel it is estimated that there are about 300 Portuguese. Although the majority are truckers who are there because they are at work, there is evidence of a case of a passenger with two Portuguese held in the middle of the lines. “This is the only case because most people choose to travel to Portugal by plane. But there were many vans in line with Poles and Bulgarians with various people, even children. There is no record of anything similar that involves national citizens ”.
The Portuguese consulate received three requests for help from Portuguese truck drivers. The information was confirmed to Expresso this Wednesday night by the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities, who explains that the three contacts were made by email sent to the Portuguese consulate in the United Kingdom and that “they have already been answered.” However, he added, “there may be more requests for help” because there is still no information on whether the Emergency Consular Office is also being contacted.
“The first email received was not a specific request, it was related to the situation; the second was from a person involved and who wanted to know if the blockade did not end, he could leave the truck and return to Portugal by another route. The third, and this was already received this Wednesday, was the wife of a truck driver who is in the blockade very worried because people are running out of food and water, ”said Secretary of State Berta Nunes.
The closure of the border was ordered by the French government this Sunday, after the discovery of a new strain of the virus in England, which some experts consider more contagious than the variants known so far. The French Government’s decision meant that some 4,000 truckers were detained for several days in areas near the crossing points of the English Channel.
On Tuesday, and after negotiations with the United Kingdom, the French government authorized the passage, but presenting a covid-19 detection test with a negative result and carried out in the last 72 hours.
