The first Saudi flight evacuating citizens from Indonesia arrived in Riyadh on Friday with 250 passengers.
“This is the first batch of Saudis wishing to leave Jakarta,” Saudi Ambassador to Indonesia Issam Abed Al-Thaqafi told Asharq Al-Awsat. Some 1,000 nationals stranded in Indonesia by the COVID-19 virus want to return home, he revealed.
He said other flights coming from Jakarta are scheduled for Sunday and Monday. “The flights will land in Jeddah and Dammam,” Al-Thaqafi said, adding they will continue until all Saudis who want to return to the Kingdom are back home.
Requests to return home can be filled through a dedicated platform on the foreign ministry’s website.
After the plane landed at King Khalid International Airport on Friday morning, all sanitary and protective measures were applied to the 250 passengers as a precaution against the coronavirus.
The passengers were received by representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs, tourism and health and the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA).
The Health Ministry has set up a checkpoint where all incoming passengers must pass through thermal camera devices. A passenger showing suspected virus symptoms is isolated from the rest of the travelers. The passengers are also required to sterilize their hands before passing through passport control and stand at a distance of at least 1.5 meters. At the final step, the passengers are transported to guesthouses prepared by the Ministry of Tourism and supervised by a health ministry for a quarantine period of 14 days.
The operation follows the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, in line with their keenness on the safety and health of the citizens abroad during the coronavirus pandemic.
The King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam have been prepared to receive Saudis from Jakarta, Washington DC, Kuala Lumpur, Mauritius, Muscat, London, Manila, the Maldives, Colombo and New York.
