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Special flights that bring Poles home amid pandemic to end on Sunday

05.04.2020 15:29
An operation to bring Poles home from abroad on special flights chartered by the government amid a coronavirus pandemic was set to end on Sunday.
Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay Pixabay License

The foreign ministry in Warsaw, which is overseeing the operation, said the last seven planes would arrive from cities including Dublin, Stockholm, Zurich and London.

Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said that such flights were often the only chance for Poles to return home from regions around the world where scheduled connections were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

National carrier LOT, which has been running the operation together with the Polish government, has brought citizens home from countries including Cuba, Argentina, Australia, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

On Thursday, officials said that over 47,500 Poles had returned on the special flights.

Poland on March 15 closed its borders to non-residents and suspended scheduled international passenger air connections in an effort to stem the coronavirus outbreak.

The government later declared a “state of epidemic" and announced that the country’s borders would stay shut until April 13.

A total of 3,834 people have tested positive for the COVID-19 disease in Poland, with 84 deaths from the coronavirus so far, officials said on Sunday morning.

(pk/gs)

Source: IAR