Over 150 Ghanaian nationals stranded in India are calling on the government to provide them with a timetable on their evacuation dates.
According to them, authorities at the consulate collected their data about two months ago for possible evacuation, but have since not heard any official communication on when that will be done.
The government of Ghana had in the past few weeks evacuated over 1,000 Ghanaians from various countries, even as the country’s borders remain shut to human traffic due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to Citi News, one of the stranded Ghanaians, Edward Nwiah pleaded for a response from the government.
“We’ve completed our program and those of us in the hostel are being asked to move because we have to pay extra. Some of us didn’t budget for the extra amount so it means we have to be paying almost $400 to $500 per month of which we don’t have. Those who came for medical assistance, as you can see, the person came expecting to spend almost two to three weeks and now they have to spend about three months. Where to stay and what to eat is a problem here,” he lamented.
“We heard that there was going to be an evacuation. The Commission took our details for the evacuation but since then, nobody is saying anything. We don’t know when we’re going to be evacuated. So we are pleading that the government should let us know when we are being evacuated. At least they should give us a timetable on when we are coming so that we can also prepare for that,” he pleaded.
Number of returnees so far
The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, had earlier told Parliament that government has begun rolling out the second phase of its evacuation programme for Ghanaians stranded abroad due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to her, the government has arranged chartered flights to bring back Ghanaians home based on a schedule drawn up by the Ministry.
Following this announcement, the latest batch of Ghanaians who have returned home includes some 224 nationals arriving from the UK on June 17, 2020.
This number added to the first batch of 856 Ghanaians who had been brought back into the country.
Prior to this, some 245 Ghanaians who were deported from Kuwait were allowed into the country by the government of Ghana.
Even though the number of COVID-19 cases keeps rising in every part of the world, people still want to be repatriated despite border closures in many countries.
