South Korean nationals evacuated from China’s Wuhan disembark from a chartered flight at Gimpo International Airport on Jan. 31, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is seeking to send two chartered flights to coronavirus-hit Italy to bring home hundreds of its citizens next week, a foreign ministry official said Monday.
About 650 people have expressed their wishes to take the flights, as they have had difficulty finding plane tickets on their own, amid Italy’s strict restrictions on movement and other quarantine measures.
“I think the dispatch of the flights to Italy is expected to materialize next week,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
For those stranded in Peru, due to the country’s border closure to stem the spread of the virus, the South Korean government helped arrange a flight from the Mexican airline Aeromexico.
The plane is expected to fly from the Peruvian capital of Lima to Incheon, west of Seoul, this week, carrying about 200 people, including tourists and volunteer workers of Seoul’s overseas aid agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency.
South Korea has thus far run government-arranged flights to evacuate citizens from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a cruise ship off Yokohama near Tokyo and most recently from Tehran.
(Yonhap)
