The first batch of Rwandan passengers from Europe who were last week barred from boarding a flight out of Belgium have arrived in Kigali, an official source confirmed to APA on Sunday.
According to a senior manager at the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority (RCAA) , a group of twenty passengers arrived aboard Dutch airline KLM,which landed in Kigali on Saturday evening and proceeded to hotels awaiting their Covid-19 test results.
The decision to bar travelers from boarding the Kigali bound SN Brussels flight last week was explained as part of the implementation of travel restrictions to reduce the movement of persons at external borders of the European Union as well as discouraging outbound travel of EU citizens and residents to reduce vulnerability against Covid-19.
Last week’s incident affected not only Belgian citizens and residents seeking to travel to Rwanda but also citizens and residents (who hold EU resident permits) of other European Union countries.
Passengers were informed that only those considered travelling for essential purposes such as work, funeral and medical reasons with attestations to prove it would be allowed to board.
Rwanda has been listed as one of the few countries globally that put ideal measures in curbing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic with measures such as lockdown, testing, tracing and isolation of confirmed cases.
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CU/as/APA