Kurdistan repatriates 91 students, others who had been stuck in Armenia
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Wednesday, the Kurdistan Region’s Department of Foreign Relations (DFR) announced that 91 Kurdish students and other citizens stranded in Armenia because of the coronavirus pandemic had been evacuated and then safely arrived home in the autonomous region of Iraq.
“A group of 89 students and two others arrived at Erbil International Airport through a flight from Armenia; 57 of them from Sulaimani province, 21 from Duhok, and 13 from Erbil,” DFR official Halgurd Salaye told Kurdistan 24. “They had been stuck in Armenia due to the suspension of flights as part of the prevention measures against the new coronavirus,”
“The process of returning the citizens was conducted in coordination with Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) DFR and Iraq’s Foreign Ministry,” Salaye added, extended his thanks and gratitude towards the federal governments of both Iraq and Armenia for their support.
He also pointed out that this was just the first batch that will be brought back from Armenia and that the rest of the 200 total students studying there will be repatriated over the next few days.
A statement from the DFR explained that all of the arrivals will be held in quarantine for 14 days as part of health regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
This is the second flight this week of bringing back the region’s citizens abroad under the directives of the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region, Masrour Barzani, as on Friday KRG brought back another 270 citizens from the UK and Germany.
Read More: KRG repatriates 270 citizens from Germany, UK amid COVID-19 crisis
On Friday, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Agency announced that its current suspension of commercial flights to and from all Iraqi airports, including the Kurdistan Region, would continue until April 24th to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Read More: Iraq extends suspension of commercial flights until April 18
The Civil Aviation Agency’s decision of flight suspension was first made on March 17 and was planned to last for a week until March 24 as the government began to take preventive measures to block the disease from spreading further and has been extended several times afterwards.
According to the latest figures from the KRG’s health ministry, there have been 337 confirmed cases since the coronavirus outbreak in the Kurdistan Region, including 303 recoveries, and four deaths.
Editing by John J. Catherine