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DUBAI: The first wave of a massive exercise to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Indians trapped abroad began on Thursday (May 7), with two flights landing in India from the United Arab Emirates.
Delhi banned all incoming international flights in late March as it imposed one of the strictest COVID-19 locks in the world, leaving large numbers of workers and students stranded.
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Some 15,000 citizens will be repatriated from 12 countries on planes and naval ships, in a gigantic exercise that saw the website of the civil aviation ministry collapse on Wednesday when panicked citizens rushed to register.
Two warships have sailed to the Maldives and one to the United Arab Emirates, home to an Indian community of 3.3 million people, representing approximately 30 percent of the Gulf state’s population.
READ: COVID-19 stretches out among Indian police enforcing world’s largest blockade
The consulate in Dubai said it had received almost 200,000 requests, asking on Twitter for “patience and cooperation” as India undertakes the “massive task” of repatriation.
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The two flights that landed in Kerala state on Thursday from Abu Dhabi and Dubai carried 354 people, including nine babies.
“I am relieved that I am home,” a man on the flight from Abu Dhabi to AFP said by phone as he waited to land in Kerala state.
“The people were sitting next to each other, at least in the row that I was sitting in, we were all sitting next to each other. They are making people get off the plane now in turns, first some people got out of the plane and we have to ask him to wait, “he continued.
Indian citizens with coveted tickets, who arrived at the airports in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, were greeted by doctors in plastic masks, gloves, and aprons who took blood samples for antibody tests.
“The results came out in 10 minutes. Mine has been negative. I am super relieved,” a 40-year-old passenger at the Abu Dhabi airport told AFP.
Health workers take a blood test of a child carried by an Indian woman at Dubai International Airport before leaving the Gulf Emirate on a flight back to their country on May 7, 2020. (Photo: AFP / Karim Sahib)
“I lost my job at the company I was working with. I feel a little strange going home, while I am happy to go home there is also a feeling of uncertainty.”
The oil-rich Gulf depends on the cheap labor of millions of foreigners, mainly from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Many live in miserable camps far from the region’s striking skyscrapers and shopping malls.
But the new coronavirus and its devastating economic impact have left many sick and other unemployed workers unpaid and at the mercy of sometimes unscrupulous employers.
“We have one or two flights planned every day for the next five or six days,” Consul General Vipul, who bears a name, told AFP at Dubai airport.
Vipul said most of those on board were workers who had lost their jobs, along with pregnant women, the elderly and some stranded tourists.
“Some people will be excluded, it is inevitable in this type of situation … not everyone can be accommodated immediately,” he said.
DELAYS AND FRUSTRATION
A naval ship is expected to arrive at Rashid Port of Dubai. The Indian High Commission in the Maldives posted images on Twitter of one of its warships entering the port of Male before the planned evacuation on Friday of some 1,000 people.
Other flights will depart from Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as London, San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington.
However, a flight scheduled for Thursday from Qatar has been postponed until the weekend.
Indian media reported delays caused by the need to screen the aircrew for coronaviruses.
But frustrations have built up over the slow pace of the exercise, as well as the fact that evacuees will have to pay for their passage home and spend two weeks in quarantine upon arrival.
Indian citizens gather at Dubai International Airport before leaving the Gulf Emirates on a flight back to their country on May 7, 2020. (Photo: AFP / KARIM SAHIB)
“There are so many people who have lost their jobs here, they are literally starving,” Yasin, a 50-year-old restaurant manager who now has no job, told AFP as he checked in for his flight.
“And now the government has asked people to pay for the tickets. I sincerely want to ask the government to give it up,” he said.
“People do not have money to survive here, it is not possible to pay for flights.”
READ: Delhi’s India imposes 70% ‘crown tax’ on alcohol to deter large crowds
Those who have failed to get a ticket home have voiced their frustrations in a torrent of social media posts, while some turned up to try their luck.
Ajith, a 43-year-old computer engineer whose mother died two days ago, anxiously waited at the Dubai airport, verifying with the official that he had the important waiting list for the first flight.
“My mother was old and had medical problems … there is no one in India to take care of things, so I made an emergency request to the consulate,” he told AFP, before finally managing to secure a seat in the airplane.
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