11,000 Ukrainians still stranded abroad amid coronavirus pandemic

At least 145,000 Ukrainians have returned home since Ukraine announced it would begin shutting its borders over a two-week period starting on March 13 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But there are those who haven’t been able to come back.

While the last regular flights in and out of the country ended at the start of March 28, special charter flights allowed people to come in days later, before Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on April 1 that he would not approve anymore.

The returning Ukrainians mostly came on their own. In other cases, the government organized special flights from about a dozen aviation hubs around the world. The evacuees had to pay for these flights as well as costs to get to the hub cities.

But there are still some 11,000 Ukrainian citizens who want to return trapped on almost every continent, according to the foreign ministry. There are over 1,400 in Russia, 800 in Italy and 470 in India, for example.

Perhaps in most need are the few Ukrainians stuck in remote countries with few diplomatic ties: such as the nine at Palau Islands in Oceania, 50 in Peru and three in Ethiopia.

Their flights were canceled after Ukraine and other nations imposed travel bans. Then, they couldn’t afford the connecting flights to hub points or could not get to airports because of local travel restrictions. 

Now they face a multitude of problems: their money is running low, some can’t find a place to stay, some are facing harassment, others may be subject to fines for visa overstays.

The foreign ministry said it would help resolve these problems. It instructed its embassies and consulates to launch a program called “Zahyst” (“Protection”) to do so. But in some places, they are few and far between.

“The foreign ministry isn’t abandoning you. We are looking for ways to bring you back even after the regular passenger traffic is suspended. For those who are stuck abroad at this time, we will provide maximum help,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, addressing the stranded citizens.

People buy products at a market in Dharamshala, India during a break in the nation-wide curfew imposed on March 22 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Ukrainian photographer Andrey Yarygin is trapped in Dharamshala with his wife. (Andrey Yarygin)

Stuck near the Himalayas

While there are over 470 Ukrainians stuck in India, photographer Andrey Yarygin and his wife Olena Simko are secluded far from most of them – in the city of Dharamshala by the Himalayas in the north of the country.

The seclusion was voluntary. They came to India in February with plans to hike around the country’s west and Nepal until May. By March 13, they saw an increasing number of people wearing masks and heard that India might close borders.

So they rebooked tickets for the nearest available date, March 24, and decided to wait out the crisis in Dharamshala, a less densely populated city of 53,000. As of April 2, India has 2,032 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 58 deaths.

On the bus to Dharamshala, they learned that the Ukrainian government planned to shut borders and have given Ukrainians abroad three days to return home. That meant that their ticket for March 24 would be canceled. But they couldn’t afford new tickets for March 14-17 with prices starting at $600. So their only choice was to stay and wait.

Dharamshala is a good place for waiting: the hillside city has been home to the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan government-in-exile since 1959. With many Buddhist monks, it’s more serene than other Indian cities, where the police have beaten people with sticks for violating the nationwide curfew imposed on March 22. Other penalties are heavy fines and possible imprisonment.

Individual Indian states have also imposed bans on domestic travel. This is the reason why Yarygin and Simko, like some other Ukrainians, could not get to Ukraine’s evacuation flights on March 25-26, which departed from the capital Delhi. Early in the 470-kilometer taxi ride from Dharamshala to Delhi, Yarygin and Simko were stopped by the state police, who refused to accept a letter of passage from the Ukrainian embassy.

“It turned out that there was too little time to get to Delhi,” Yarygin, 34, told The Kyiv Post. “The embassy first told us to stay in place and then announced the flights two days in advance.”

The consulate could not help. It was busy resolving similar issues for Ukrainians in other states and even within Delhi. So Yarygin and Simko returned to Dharamshala. They were lucky to rent a room with a kitchen in a guest house.

Elsewhere in India, especially in Delhi, other Ukrainians have faced evictions and xenophobia, according to Yarygin and evacuee Alena Sapozhnikova. Europeans are now seen as the source of the coronavirus across Asia.

Yarygin and Simko now spend most of the time in their room under curfew. Yarygin says they have enough money to last for about one more week, but that also depends on the price of the plane tickets they will eventually have to buy. He may have to borrow money.

They follow the news from the embassy and the messenger group chats for Ukrainians stuck in India. Most of them think they will only be evacuated after the quarantine is over in both Ukraine and India. Over 150 Ukrainians in the coastal state of Goa are most active in trying to find ways to evacuate.

Yarygin says that, if an evacuation goes ahead, the couple will need help from the embassy in organizing a special bus to take them and other Ukrainians in neighboring states to the Delhi airport and help them pass through state police checkpoints.

“We still hope for an additional special flight and that we will be able to prepare and get to Delhi,” he says.

While Ethiopia has not yet closed its airports, many of the flights from the country’s Bole International Airport were canceled because of the travel restrictions in Europe due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. That’s why the Ukrainian scientist Yevhen Naumenko and his two friends ended up stranded in the country. (AFP)

Uncertain in Ethiopia 

While Ukrainians stuck in Europe and Asia have strength in numbers, people like geologist Yevhen Naumenko are practically on their own. Naumenko, 44, and his two older friends are the only Ukrainians stranded in Ethiopia.

The novel coronavirus has not yet taken hold strongly in Africa. As of April 2, Ethiopia had 29 confirmed cases. But Naumenko still can’t get home since almost all of Europe has closed its borders. And there are also other things to worry about.

“As my friend says, the coronavirus has to get in line in this country. After typhus, cholera, dysentery,” Naumenko told the Kyiv Post.

But their most pressing problem is money. They took a vacation for almost a month. But now they may have to pay their hotel for another month — provided that Ukraine lifts its quarantine on April 24, which is the current plan. But it appears increasingly likely that the quarantine will be extended and they will have to stay even longer.

Naumenko and his friend came to Ethiopia as tourists on March 4. The geologist also planned to examine some natural sites that are “world-class unique.” They were supposed to leave on March 30.

They were in the mountains in the country’s north when the Ukrainian government announced on March 13 that it would close borders, giving Ukrainians just three days to return. But the hikers had no cellular connection. When they returned to the capital, Addis Ababa, they learned that their flight to Kyiv through Amsterdam was canceled.

They changed their flights to Vienna for April 1, hoping to travel by bus from there to Kyiv. But on March 28, that flight was canceled too, like all flights to Europe. The only European country that is still open is Sweden, but the tickets start at $2,200, he says, more than they need for a month in Ethiopia.

The three Ukrainians went to the embassy, where the charge d’affaires of Ukraine told them there was not much he could do. He said he would insist through diplomatic channels that they be evacuated together with the 14 Ukrainians trapped in the nearby Seychelle Islands, but didn’t know when that would happen.

“I have no complaints against him. He himself doesn’t know how to get us out,” Naumenko says.

The charge d’affaires also has only been in the country since February, so he can’t help them find a cheaper place to stay, Naumenko says. They are now looking for an apartment for rent because they can’t afford the hotel for much longer.

That might be a problem. Some locals are getting increasingly wary of Europeans. It’s not like in India, Naumenko says, but when he tried to enter an ancient cave with paintings, the villagers shooed him away.

“Kids also tease us in the streets shouting ‘Corona! Corona!” he says.

Still, the locals are more afraid of the Chinese and the Italians, the two nations most hit by the coronavirus until the U.S. topped the list. The hotel staff is nice, though, Naumenko says.

He generally seems cheerful, but that’s just a psychological defense, he says.

“Money is a problem. But the biggest one is uncertainty. Nobody knows how long this will last.”