Over 200 South Africans who were repatriated from the US were left stranded at OR Tambo International Airport for almost five hours after arriving yesterday afternoon [4 May].
After a flight from Washington, the plane arrived in Johannesburg at around 5pm, but received no communication except that they had to wait in minibuses on the tarmac outside the airport. The group included elderly persons, however by 9:30pm they were still waiting in the cold without any food or water.
One woman reportedly fainted, and was in need of oxygen, according to The South African. She was tended to.
One of the South Africans, surf champion Jordy Smith, said: ‘We were told we were going to a government facility to be put into quarantine for 14 days. And now we’ve been sitting on the tarmac for about five hours now.’
He took to Instagram to show their ordeal:
Other posted pictures to Twitter:
275 South Africans landed from US this afternoon. They were processed & read to be quarantined as per gov rules, BUT they’ve been on the tarmac at OR Tambo for the past 4 hours. They’ve been told the acc facility cancelled it’s contract with gov Now they stranded & waiting pic.twitter.com/sDIpxMCm9K
— Heidi Giokos (@HeidiGiokos) May 4, 2020
After 10pm, the passengers were reportedly told to return to their vehicles and left the airport, but were not told where they were going.
Minister of Public Works Patricia de Lille’s spokesperson Zara Nicholson said that while authorities are aware of the situation, Government has not communicated clearly to them either exactly what was to happen and they were not given adequate time to prepare.
‘The problem is that we keep getting notified on the day that people are arriving and that’s against the agreement supposed to be in place from a national joint committee, which is that Public Works must get 72 hours notice, so that we can procure and allocate sites properly,’ she said.
Source: News24
Image: Twitter/Heidi Giokos
