JEDDAH: A flight from Indonesia on Friday returned 250 Saudi nationals to the Kingdom as聽part of government efforts to bring home citizens trapped abroad amid the聽coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said the passengers had arrived back in the Kingdom聽onboard a 黑料社区n聽聽Airlines flight from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
GACA spokesman Ibrahim Al-Rosa said: 鈥淲e have received the first 250 passengers returning from聽Jakarta. It is one of the stages to bring Saudis back, and the flights were coordinated with 黑料社区n聽Airlines.鈥
The repatriation flight follows the return on Wednesday of a group of nearly 200 Saudis from Bahrain.聽They were among 790 Saudi nationals left stranded in Bahrain by the virus outbreak who are being聽bused home via the King Fahd Causeway which connects the two countries.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched an e-service ()聽platform where citizens can register their wish to return to the Kingdom.
Al-Rosa said GACA was working with the Saudi ministries of health, foreign affairs, and tourism to聽coordinate flight arrangements and that the authorities had set up a 24-hour joint operations center to聽oversee the safe return of citizens.
Three Saudi airports 鈥 King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdul Aziz International聽Airport in Jeddah, and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam 鈥 have been prepared to receive聽passengers from Jakarta, Washington, DC, Kuala Lumpur, Mauritius, Muscat, London, Manila, the聽Maldives, Colombo and New York as part of the initial stage of the initiative.
鈥淭he passengers will undergo 12 different preventive checkups (for COVID-19) divided into three聽stages; the first stage is before boarding the plane, the second is inside the cabin and the last stage is聽upon arrival where they will go through temperature screenings before quarantine for 14 days,鈥 added聽Al-Rosa.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Ministry of Health announced 364 new cases of COVID-19 in the Kingdom, 19聽recoveries and three deaths. The overall case count has now reached 3,651, with 2,919 active cases; 57 of聽them are currently in intensive care, while 685 had been treated and 47 had died.
Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Aly said the ministry was running various聽COVID-19 advice and communication channels including the Sehha app, the 937 call center, the Mawid聽self-assessment app, and Tatamman app for specialized groups.