More rescue flights as 38,000 Sri Lankans want to return

• Flights to Kuwait, Doha, Moscow, Belarus and Dhaka planned for this week 
• Separate SriLankan flights to London, Melbourne and Narita  
• Sri Lankans in Qatar and Bangladesh also to return in next few days

By Charumini de Silva

More rescue flights are planned this week onward as over 38,000 Sri Lankans stranded overseas on account of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have expressed interest to return home.

Beginning this week new repatriation flights are expected to be deployed from Kuwait, Doha, Moscow, Belarus and Dhaka apart from SriLankan Airlines’ select services to London, Melbourne and Narita, Japan.

According to Foreign Relations Ministry of the 38,983 in 143 countries, there are 27,854 migrant workers and 3,527 dependents, 3,078 students, 4,040 short-term visa holders and 484 duel citizens.

The 27,854 migrant workers primarily include around 7,000 in the Maldives, 5,000 in UAE, 4,000 in Qatar, 2,000 in Saudi Arabia, 750 in Bangladesh and 500 Ethiopia, and varied smaller numbers from other countries, including the Gulf region.  

Most of these persons have expressed desire to return through the Ministry’s ‘Contact Sri Lanka’ web portal and other means. 

Commenced from last week, a flight each has been operated from the UAE, the Maldives, and Tokyo. Yesterday the first batch of migrant workers from Kuwait, numbering approximately 460, arrived via two Kuwait Airways flights. They are among 10,000 Lankans who have sought to benefit from the amnesty declared by the Kuwaiti Government for Sri Lankans who are out of status.

To date nearly 4,000 Sri Lankans living overseas including a large number of students have been repatriated from 15 countries via ferry flights operated by SriLankan Airlines on request of the Foreign Relations Ministry as well as by special flights by host countries.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, SriLankan has operated special flights to China, India, UK, Australia, UAE and the Maldives to bring Sri Lankans back home. 

The Foreign Relations Ministry has prioritised repatriations based on most vulnerable categories of Sri Lankans overseas starting from students and public servants.

Through a Cabinet paper on 6 May, Foreign Relations Minister Dinesh Gunawardena got approval, in parallel with the priority given to repatriate students, to also commence to repatriate migrant workers – particularly those who are illegal, have lost jobs and are suffering from serious medical conditions. Attention was also paid to include short-term visitors stranded in these countries.

The repatriation process is being operationalised by Sri Lanka Missions in relevant countries in consultation with the Ministry, the COVID-19 Task Force and a host of national agencies.