The largest return campaign for citizens who are stuck in other countries is running not only in Germany but throughout the European Union. Every day, more and more people report to the authorities who are unable to return to their home country because of the corona pandemic. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday after a video conference of the foreign ministers that air traffic is “in trouble” at twenty nodes around the world. He spoke of “more than 200,000 EU citizens” who would have asked for their return. Borrell explicitly pointed out that only people who did not live abroad permanently had to return.
According to estimates by the Foreign Office’s crisis team, the total number of Germans wishing to take part in the ministry’s return campaign has increased to more than 200,000. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said on Monday that around 120,000 German tourists had already been picked up from their holiday areas in the past few days. Tens of thousands came from the holiday areas of the African Mediterranean coast alone, for example from Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. This newspaper received a call for help from German tourists from the Moroccan Mediterranean coast, who reported that the German embassy was not sufficiently informing them about return options to Germany.
In Ecuador, the landing was refused because Corona is considered an “epidemic among whites”
Borrell was very annoyed that “EU citizens are being stigmatized abroad” because the corona is portrayed there as a “plague among whites”. Some planes that were supposed to bring citizens back were therefore even prevented from landing. Specifically, he named the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador. “The widespread use of fake news creates social reactions and views that are very dangerous,” said Borrell. Maas conceded that the situation in many countries was complicated because those wishing to return often had difficulty reaching airports in their travel countries from which the return transport could take place.
In the meantime, many countries have imposed curfews due to corona and also prevent or restrict internal travel. In Berlin, there were irritations at the weekend after a plane with holidaymakers from Egypt had landed in the capital and the health department had decreed that the arrivals had to stay in quarantine for two weeks because they had entered a corona risk area.
