More than 6,000 Mongolians abroad wish to return home

Society
baljmaa@montsame.gov.mn
2020-04-06 17:13:47

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. At today’s press briefing organized by the State Emergency Commission (SEC), L.Munkhtushig, Director General of the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave an information concerning the Mongolian nationals stranded abroad in the wake of travel restrictions imposed by Mongolia and foreign countries due to COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

He informed that as of today, 6,315 Mongolians in 45 countries around the world have contacted Mongolia’s diplomatic missions abroad and expressed their requests to return to Mongolia. 


Among them, 84 people have health concerns, 271 are elders, 378 people are having difficulties with accommodation, 32 are pregnant women, 811 are students and most of them or 4,000 people are faced with financial or other types of problems to remain in the host countries, according to Mr. Munkhtushig. 


Respective around 1,000 and 2,000 Mongolian citizens have submitted their requests to return to Mongolia from the USA and the Republic of Korea, where two of the largest Mongolian communities abroad are represented. 


He added that South Korea is home to an estimated 48,100 Mongolians and the number of people, who wish to return from there, is difficult to be estimated as the Mongolian Embassy in Seoul is only registering those with reasonable excuses. 


Moreover, there are around 500 Mongolians in Turkey and 150 people in India waiting to be evacuated. 


Mr. Munkhtushig said that there are some 150 children are staying in Delhi, India to receive medical treatment and it is not clear whether all of them are included in 150 people, who wish to get back home from India. 


With preliminary talks with the Russian side, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other corresponding organizations are making necessary arrangements to allow scheduled entrance to Mongolian nationals returning from Russia, the northern neighbor of Mongolia, only through the Altanbulag border checkpoints, and 150 Mongolians in Russia are currently waiting for permission to cross the border to Mongolia. 


Since mid-March, the government of Mongolia has been arranging special chartered flights to evacuate Mongolian nationals abroad and more than 1,500 people have arrived home on six evacuation flights as of today from Tokyo, Seoul, Istanbul and Berlin. 


The next evacuation flight is scheduled to depart on April 8, to Seoul, South Korea. As all requests cannot be entertained at once due to limited seating on chartered planes, only people with aforementioned excuses are being allowed and the seats on the chartered flights are available on a first-come, first-served basis. 


There are more than 190,000 Mongolians living in different parts of the world, said Mr. Munkhtushig.