Coronavirus: Air India to fetch Indians stranded in Italy

NEW DELHI: The Indian government will be sending an Air India 787 Dreamliner to evacuate 220-236 Indians, including students, who have tested negative for Covid-19 in Rome, Italy. The flight will arrive in Delhi on Sunday.

Italy has emerged as a major coronavirus hotspot with nearly 47,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths. Italy is the worst-hit European nation and the number of deaths has surpassed even China’s. Wuhan in the Hubei province of China was the original epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

This will be the second evacuation mission to Italy. A week ago, on March 15, India had brought back over 211 students who were stuck in Italy because their flight was cancelled amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

An Air India official told India Today that the flight to Rome would take off from the Delhi airport around 2:30 pm.

India is reaching out to its nationals stranded in Iran too, another coronavirus hotspot. Indian students are stranded in Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. For other foreign countries, the government has advised Indian nationals to stay put.

Dammu Ravi, additional secretary in the Indian foreign ministry and coordinator for COVID-19 told India Today, “If Indians are held up in some place, our advice to them would be to stay put because ideally in such a situation they should be able to make do locally with whatever resources they have. Our missions and ambassadors are in the forefront to support the stranded Indians wherever they are."

The foreign ministry has opened a control room to deal with queries from Indian nationals stranded in foreign countries. It will be available 24X7 with 25-30 staff working in eight-hour shifts.

India has suspended international commercial flights starting March 22, 2020 for a period of one week.

India has a total of 271 confirmed cases, including 39 foreigners. Coronavirus has claimed over 10,000 lives across the world with highest toll in Italy.

Also read:

• COVID-19: Hundreds of Indian students stranded at Manila airport
• COVID-19: Indian medical students’ ordeal at Kuala Lumpur airpo

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