On March 21, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka instructed officials to tackle the problems of Belarusian citizens returning from South Asian countries.
In the course of Saturday’s meeting, Alyaksandr Lukashenka noted that Belarusians were not allowed for return flights served by Russian airlines. According to him, Belarus counts on much more support from Russia; in turn, the country is ready to help Russians return home from Poland.
“Some Belarusians who were on holiday in India had tickets for the return flight served by Russian airlines. But they were pushed out of the cabin, they were not taken aboard! Don’t look for easy solutions; we will send a chartered plane and bring people back. A person has a ticket, it is necessary to take them to a destination point stated in their ticket. That group had tickets to Moscow. And then we will think about how to collect our people from Moscow,” the Belarusian leader said.
At the same time, Alyaksandr Lukashenka has no intention to give a helping hand to those who knew about the coronavirus threat and went abroad after the authorities ‘had warned them against it’.
“They left; let them stay at the place they left for. I know that sometimes people find themselves in a sitiation when they have to go and solve some issues. But these are rare cases; we hardly have them. If someone needs to leave Belarus, they should get an approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Only in that event will we be responsible for them,” the head of state announced.
He also blasted some Belarusian citizens who are now taking advantage of their Pole’s Cards and leave for Poland.
“We should give the following instructions to our border guards: if one want to go to Poland, they should go there and stay there. It is necessary to warn our people: there should be no travels abroad! But if one has left, stay there until the pandemic ends,” Lukashenka said.
