By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 29: A total of 123,848 Nepalis from 32 different countries have returned home amid the COVID-19 pandemic by a rescue flight arranged by the government.
In order to mitigate the risk of the pandemic, the government closed the international border last April and banned air travel. As Nepalis have started returning home after complying with health protocols, regular international flights have also resumed recently.
According to the COVID-19 Crisis Management Center (CCMC), 123,848 Nepalis have returned home as of Wednesday evening. On Wednesday alone, the government rescued 436 Nepalis from abroad.
So far, Nepalis have returned home from 32 countries, including 577 from Jordan, 64 from Cyprus, 39 from Iraq and 85 from India.
Normally, a large number of Nepalis working in India entered Nepal by land rather than by air.
According to the statistics, 50 Nepalis have returned from Afghanistan, 1,100 from Australia, 2,126 from Oman, 22,612 from Qatar, 26 from Myanmar, 9,923 from Kuwait and 3,541 from Japan.
Similarly, 477 Nepalis have returned from Thailand, 1,811 from South Korea, 930 from Bangladesh, 17,932 from Malaysia and 1,026 from Maldives.
Similarly, six Nepalis have returned from Sri Lanka, 35,990 from UAE, 17,522 from Saudi Arabia, 856 from Singapore, 546 from Hong Kong, 111 from Pakistan, 1,339 from Bahrain, 437 from USA, 229 from the UK and 127 from Israel.
Similarly, 540 Nepalis have returned from China, 201 from Philippines, 10 from Switzerland and 250 from South Sudan.
The returnees will be sent to quarantine through the holding center, which is under the management of the Nepali Army and coordinated by concerned States.
According to the report, so far 13,909 rescued people are currently staying in different hotel quarantines, 7,682 in home quarantines, 4,865 in local quarantines and 67 are directly admitted to different hospitals. Within this period, 96,243 have been sent to their respective States.
At 18,892, Bagmati State has the highest number of rescued people followed by State 1 with 15, 869, as of Wednesday evening.
The Cabinet meeting held on May 18 had decided to rescue COVID-19 hit Nepalis from abroad.