During the State Emergency Commission meeting on Friday, Minister of Foreign Affairs D.Tsogtbaatar and National Emergency Management Agency Head T.Badral updated on response measures for the COVID-19 situation.
T.Badral reported that seven Mongolian nationals living in foreign countries tested positive for COVID-19, including two students in Moscow, Russia.
“Most Mongolians with financial problems applied from Australia. We are exchanging views with the country on how to evacuate our nationals. The first flight to Seoul on April 17 will take passengers with urgent needs from the United States and Australia. We also plan to fly to Europe. Many students there are requesting to return home. So far, 276 students have applied. About 110 of them are students from Moscow, 90 from Irkutsk and 60 from Ulan-Ude. The question of whether it is right or wrong to evacuate students is being discussed in society. As of today, seven Mongolians living abroad have been infected with the coronavirus. Two of them are in Moscow. If we don't accept students and evacuate them, their lives will be at high risk. Especially, we need to evacuate students from Moscow. 110 students will arrive in Ulan-Ude by plane tomorrow morning. We will also bring the infected people. Students from Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, and Moscow will be transported in three stages starting tomorrow.”
“To date, 7,624 citizens in 43 countries have applied to return home through diplomatic missions of Mongolia abroad. For example, 2,000 Mongolian nationals in Korea, 1,270 in the United States, 906 in Australia, 560 in Kazakhstan, 549 in India, 437 in Turkey, and 365 in the United Kingdom, and 300 in Japan have applied to return home.”
Breakdown of those who applied to return to Mongolia
Families with young children - 830
For medical reasons - 86
Elderly - 278
Pregnant - 32
Young children - 307
Student - 973
People who have no place to stay - 409
Those with a financial problem - 89
Other reasons - over 4,000
Minister of Foreign Affairs D.Tsogtbaatar said, “In the past, a total of 10 charter flights were operated by the State Emergency Commission and MIAT. For example, as you know, citizens were returned from Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin and Istanbul. As mentioned earlier, we initially chose people who meet the five criteria. After the registration of people who wanted to return home, all seats were filled within just a few hours. But there are few Mongolian nationals living in Europe. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs worked closely with each citizen to return the. It was not easy. In the future, we will calculate the adequacy of the isolation center and the workload of doctors, the number of people leaving the hospital, and fly the next plane. We will evacuate our citizens as much as possible.”
