“No trauma can be bigger than that of being denied entry to your country of birth when in distress. I will not wish it even for the staunchest of my enemies,” says Abhijit K.S., one of the 20-odd passengers who landed at the Cochin international airport here on Saturday after spending more than 72 disquieting hours at the Fiumicino international airport in Rome.
After being denied flight in the last minute on Tuesday, a group of 40-odd Malayalis had been stranded at the airport before a section of those passengers were taken in by an Emirates flight on Friday evening. The flight arrived here around 8.30 a.m.
“We have been literally camping in front of the Emirates counter since then and finally the airline staff informed us that we will be taken in their flight. By then many among us had gone back in the face of the seemingly never-ending uncertainty,” says Abhijit.
‘An exemption’
Interestingly, they were not required to produce a medical certificate clearing them of COVID-19 infection as mandated by the Union government for allowing them entry into the country. “We were told that those going to Kochi alone were being granted that exemption. Our temperature was checked at the time of boarding and also at Dubai,” says Santhosh Antony, another passenger.
Abhijit says the situation in Italy had spiralled so out of control that there was no way they could have got tested and received a certificate. “People are under the impression that Italy being an advanced European country is more than capable of dealing with this emergency. But the fact is that they are just so jolted by the enormity of the challenge,” he says.
Fego Francis and Gloria Fego are trying to soothe their frayed nerves even hours after reaching the safety of their home in Thrissur. They had to spend more than three days with their their two-month-old son at the airport, something that would haunt them for long.
Tickets issued to the passengers had expired by Friday and with attempts to get tickets rescheduled by the travel agency getting delayed some of them bought new tickets rather than run the risk of another postponement of their journey.
