On May 30, 2021 the evacuation flight from Moscow operated by Turkmenistan Airlines arrived in Turkmenabat. According to a source at “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”, of 176 Turkmen nationals, who arrived to Turkmenistan, about a half were people who have served a prison sentence or have been held in deportation centres in Russia.
The flight arrived at 8:20 a.m.Until 3 p.m.the passengers were held on the runway under the burning sun.
They were then transported to a camp near the airport, not far from the new infectious diseases hospital.The facility is located in the sands, approximately 6 kilometers from the outskirts of the city.
The passengers’ mobile phones were confiscated and their baggage was put in a sealed container.Women with children and some VIP passengers were accommodated in the hospital building whereas others had to stay in tents.
Women with children who previously arrived from Malaysia are also being held in the infectious diseases hospital.On Friday their quarantine will be completed.Upon exiting the facility they will obtain a negative COVID-19 certificate valid for 72 hours, which can be used to go home.
The conditions in the camp are quite good.There are no other people in the camp except the passengers of the evacuation flight and the majority of tents are vacant.
Meals are provided and funded by public sector organizations of the city.Rice porridge and eggs are served for breakfast, soup for lunch and pilaf for dinner.The camp is equipped with toilets and showers.
People have their temperatures taken daily and on Mondays blood tests are taken. The personnel is treating everybody well.
Convicts and deportees are kept in the male section of the camp under the tightened security regime. A fight broke out the first night because of a theft.
Visitations by family members are forbidden. The mandatory quarantine, even for those who got vaccinated in Russia, will last three weeks.
In early June another repatriation flight is scheduled to depart from Moscow.
Let us recall that on 16 April, 2021 at the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA CIS) the Deputy Interior Minister of Russia Aleksandr Gorovoy emphasized that he “does not see any steps undertaken by Turkmenistan to repatriate its citizens from detention сentres in Russia”.
In mid May it transpired thatfor a year Turkmenistan had ignored the appeals by St.Petersburg’s Ombudsman to repatriate Turkmen nationals awaiting deportation.
As a result of the reached agreements, six Turkmen nationals were scheduled to return to their home country by the end of May.The post Сonvicts and Turkmen nationals from deportation centres repatriated to Turkmenistan in an evacuation flight from Moscow first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.