Coronavirus: Kashmiri students stranded in Iran await evacuation

As the government of India continues to airlift its citizens from coronavirus-hit countries, around 350 Kashmiri students stranded in Iran are awaiting evacuation.

These students were scheduled to fly to Kashmir for annual holidays but were stranded in Iran after airlines cancelled their flights from Tehran, where around three dozen people have died due to the outbreak of the COVID-19.

Most of these stranded students, who are studying Medicine in Tehran, are making frantic calls to their parents to help them in getting evacuated from Iran which has recorded the highest number of deaths outside of China.

“My son, who is doing MBBS in Iran, desperately wants to return, but there is no option for him to as airlines have cancelled their flights to Tehran. We feel helpless and hopeless as no one from the government is coming forward to rescue the stranded students,” said father of one of the stranded students.

However, a top official of Jammu and Kashmir government told DH that they were in constant touch with the Ministry of External Affairs to evacuate Kashmiri students stranded in Iran. “We have been given assurance by the Ministry that they will take a call on their evacuation soon,” he said.

Thousands of students and pilgrims from Kashmir visit Iran every year and a good number among them have arrived home during the last few weeks. However, according to a health official, none of them has been quarantined so far which poses the risk of coronavirus in Kashmir.

Recently over 100 people, mostly students, arrived in Kashmir from China with 34 evacuated from the epicentre of COVID-19 -Wuhan. They were quarantined and samples of some of them with fever and respiratory ailments were taken.

“One of the students who was evacuated from Wuhan on February 1 has developed some symptoms. He has been shifted to SKIMS Soura from home quarantine and his samples have been taken and sent for testing,” the official said.

On February 26, the government of India issued a travel advisory asking people to avoid non-essential travel to Iran, North Korea and Italy where coronavirus deaths were reported recently. People with travel history of Iran, North Korea and Italy since February 10 have been asked for 14 days quarantine.

Globally, at least 80,000 people have been diagnosed with the illness with over 2,800 deaths reported, so far, mostly in China. In an unprecedented move that is likely to have massive repercussions the world over, Saudi Arabia has imposed a temporary ban on all umrah (minor haj) pilgrims to keep the county safe from coronavirus.