Coronavirus: 350 Egyptians to leave Kuwait for home amid COVID-19 outbreak
Egypt’s national carrier to operate repatriation flights in light of COVID-19 outbreak
Cairo: Around 350 Egyptians are due later Wednesday to fly from Kuwait to their homeland as part of emergency flights arranged between the two countries to transport foreign residents who want to depart to Egypt.
They will board a flight operated by Egypt’s state-owned airline EgyptAir. The 350 passengers are mainly Egyptian nationals who were in Kuwait on visit visas, but were unable to leave the country after air traffic was halted between the two countries as part of precautions against the coronavirus, sources at Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai.
The group also includes eight administratively deported people, the sources said without details.
An EgyptAir plane is due to arrive in Kuwait Wednesday with no passengers on board and leave carrying the 350 people in the afternoon, the sources added.
The carrier is scheduled to operate a daily flight from Kuwait to Egypt until March 30.
Egypt has an expatriate community of about 600,000 people in Kuwait.