Secretary of State Mike Pompeo orders Americans to return home ‘immediately’ due to COVID-19 saying he cannot guarantee charter flights once commercial planes cease to operate
- Pompeo says he ‘does not know how long commercial flights will operate’ and urged Americans to immediately return home
- The State Department has already helped to repatriate 26,000 Americans from countries where commercial options are limited
- Around 30,000 US citizens are still trying to get home amid the coronavirus pandemic
- However, 10 million Americans live abroad, and a vast majority have opted to stay in their adopted countries
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered Americans to return to the United States, saying flights may soon cease amid the coronavirus pandemic.
‘We don’t know how long commercial flights will operate,’ Pompeo said Tuesday during a press conference in Washington, DC.
‘And we cant guarantee the US government’s ability to arrange charter flights indefinitely once [those] commercial options no longer exist’.
Pompeo told Americans to seek out an available flight ‘immediately’, or contact their local embassy for more information on travel plans.
Around 10 million US citizens live abroad, and most do not wish to return home amid the crisis as they have established lives in new countries.
However, the government stressed last week that all Americans abroad should weigh whether they are comfortable remaining overseas indefinitely.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered Americans to return to the United States, saying flights may soon cease amid the coronavirus pandemic
Travelers wait for a charter flight coordinated by the US embassy at the La Aurora airport in Guatemala City last Tuesday. They are among the 26,000 Americans repatriated by the US government
Meanwhile, the State Department has already been repatriating Americans citizens traveling in foreign countries where commercial options are severely limited.
Pomeo said Tuesday that The State Department has helped helped to bring home more than 26,000 citizens since the COVID-19 outbreak gripped the world.
‘Never in the Department’s 230 year history have we led a worldwide evacuation of such geographic complexity and scale,’ he stated.
The Secretary of State added that his Department has set up a ’24/7 repatriation team’ which has been coordinating closely with other agencies and the federal government.
‘We have no higher duty to the American people than to pull this off,’ Pompeo proclaimed, adding that the task force would ‘continue to bring home thousands in the coming days and weeks’.
Travelers wait for a charter flight coordinated by the US embassy at the La Aurora airport in Guatemala City last Tuesday
Many Americans have found it difficult to get back to the US amid the coronavirus outbreak, as commercial airlines have canceled thousands of flights
According to a report from NPR, approximately 30,000 Americans are still trying to get home.
‘We’re still working to connect people to commercial options where those flights are available and to lay on charter flights where they are not,’ Ian Brownlee, who runs the State Department’s repatriation task force, told the radio network.
‘This is fairly complex contractual work. The State Department’s capacity to do this is being strained. We’re talking with the Department of Defense as to whether they can essentially help us out in lining up aircraft,’ he added.
NPR reported that flights from Morocco, Spain, Mexico, UAE, New Zealand, Kenya and Israel are all ‘in the queue’.
US citizens will be returning a country that has been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak – with more than 160,000 Americans having tested positive to COVID-19.
American citizens wearing protective masks stranded during the lockdown amid Coronavirus outbreak at the Tribhuvan International Airport. United States has repatriated its citizens who were left stranded in different parts of Nepal due to nationwide lockdown enforced to curb the spread of coronavirus