As the coronavirus COVID-19 spreads in west Asia, the Indian mission has been reaching out to its nationals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and provided them with food and psychological help.
In an exclusive interview, Indian ambassador to UAE, Pavan Kapoor, said both UAE and India have offered to fly back their respective stranded nationals but due to closure of India's airspace things are not moving currently. UAE hosts over 3.3 million Indians, one of the largest concentrations of anywhere in the world.
Speaking on the Indian mission taking care of Indians in UAE Kapoor said, "One of the things we have done apart from setting up of the 24x7 helplines, both in Abu Dabhi and Dubai for the Indian citizens is that we have been trying to provide food to all those who are in need. To some, we sent food provisions, who can cook, otherwise, we tried to send cooked meals to those bachelors in accommodation who either cannot go out for some reason or unable to afford food at this time."
"In addition, we have set up, telemedicine helpline whereby patients or suspected patients are being called by Indian doctors to advise them what to do before they have taken to a quarantine facility or provided other treatment. We are also providing psychological help through over telephone to calm people who are little concerned and panicking at the spread of COVID- 19," he added.
In addition to that, the Indian mission is also providing passport facility, attestation services in these difficult times, and also carrying on with the unfortunate task of sending back mortal remains of people who are passing away at this unfortunate times. This has also been complicated by the fact that India's air space is not open and they have to get special permission for mortal remains to travel on cargo planes which are travelling to India.
"We are working with our authorities in India and have been managing to help quite a few people with that. Finally, we are also trying to work with authorities to improve and increase the isolation facilities for our nationals," he further added.
On how India and UAE are collaborating on the crisis and on plans of repatriation, Kapoor said, "One of the first things we are dealing with are cases of a large number of visitors from India, who are here and UAE resident permit holder whose visas and entry permits have expired and they are very concerned as to what is going to happen."
"We have worked with UAE authorities to assure them that these visas will be extended and mostly without any penalty charges, so that is one of the things UAE authorities are helpful and working with us. Another aspect is we are working with UAE authorities to create more isolation facilities for our nationals because the number of them getting infected is increasing, simply because they are a substantial portion of the population so as the number of cases of those being infected in this country goes up, the number of those of Indian nationals also going up," he added.
"UAE authorities have offered to fly back and assist in flying back of our nationals who are wanting to go back to India, we have UAE authorities to fly back there nationals who want to come back to UAE. As of now our airspace is still shut for passenger flights but as and when it opens up we will certainly work to help, work with the UAE authorities to get our nationals back to India in a safe and secure manner as possible," he added.
