Around 780 foreign tourists, mostly from European countries, stranded in Nepal due to the coronavirus pandemic, have been evacuated in special flights, as the government intensified the lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19.
The foreigners were evacuated in four different charteredflights arranged by different countries and their diplomatic missions in Nepal,according to officials.
The embassies of Germany, the US, Australia, France andother countries had reached out to the Nepal government for permission toevacuate their citizens from Nepal where a nation-wide lockdown has beenimposed by the government to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
The government granted permission to operate charteredflights at the request of the diplomatic missions.
Two special chartered flights by Qatar Airways took off fromTribhuvan International Airport (TIA) carrying 605 passengers. “Of the totalpassengers, 159 were Germans and the rest were French, Europeans andnon-European nationals,” according to an official at the Nepal Tourism Board.
Similarly, 73 foreigners were flown out of Kathmandu in achartered Malindo Air flight that took off from TIA. The last one to fly out ofKathmandu was Czech Airlines. The aircraft flew towards Armenia with 102passengers on board.
More than 1,700 foreigners were rescued from Pokhara, Luklaand other tourist sites over the past one week and most of them have left fortheir respective countries in chartered flights, officials said All international flights to and from Nepalhave -been suspended due to the nation-wide lockdown imposed till April 7.
Nepal government has tightened restrictions imposed duringthe lockdown period.A Cabinet meeting held on Saturday decided tostop citizens from moving from one local unit to another and from one districtto another, said government spokesperson and Minister for Finance Yuba RajKhatiwada.