Last Updated on April 19, 2020, 9:12 AM AST by Anthony Morris
One hundred and fifty Canadians were sent back home from Guyana yesterday when a Canadian Airline made its very first direct flight to Guyana as part of the relief efforts during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The humanitarian flight was operated by Canadian airline WestJet.
This was the first time when the airline had made a direct trip to Guyana. The flight is expected to return to Guyana on Monday to pick up more Canadian nationals who would be departing from Guyana.
Lilian Chatterjee, the Canadian High Commissioner, said that Canada is very, very grateful to the Government of Guyana who helped the country and understood the need and was very accommodating.
She told the media that a total of 600 persons had reached out the High Commission so far and the seats for the two humanitarian flights were sold out within 24 hours.
She said that the Canadian Government is hoping to analyze how many more Canadians are hoping to leave Guyana and that the Government would work closely with the Government task force to see how many more approvals they can get.
She further said that 600 persons wanted to return to Canada, and 300 had gotten on to these two humanitarian flights.
The flight departed from Guyana via the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) yesterday at 15.30 hours.
The CJIA was shut down, and commercial flights were halted since March 18 as part of the effort of the Government to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, but after seeing the need for the Canadian citizens to return home, it was temporarily re-opened.
The flights which are taking persons back home from Guyana are a part of the efforts of the Canadia Government to help Canadians stranded abroad to get back to their country and their home.
A group of Canadian citizens had boarded two chartered flights on April 4, 2020, which took them out to Barbados first and then took them to Canada.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
