Foreign Ministry Official Spokesman Al-Sahaf: We managed to return 4462 Iraqis stranded in several countries in the world and coordinated with Spain and Germany to open their airspace to our national carrier
National Response Diplomacy
The Foreign Ministry has been dealing with the Coronavirus crisis with a professional and national responsibility by activating national response diplomacy in overcoming the challenges of the emergency situation, and to enhance the path of communication with Iraqi embassies and commissions abroad to provide the best services to our citizens stranded in the countries of the world, by following their conditions, and by responding to transfer them from the counties they are stranded in coordination with the Ministry of Transport.
In the wake of the spread of the viral pandemic, and the strict measures taken in its confrontation, including: the comprehensive lockdown, the closure of airports, and other other measures, the Foreign Minister Mr. Mohamad A. Alhakim directed that all the capabilities of the Foreign Ministry be explored and work should be done at maximum capacity, whether in the Ministry and its departments, or in missions deployed throughout the world to achieve a rapid response, and to meet the needs of Iraqis stranded outside the country, to announce the transition to response diplomacy.
Foreign Minister Mr. Mohamad A. Alhakim also directed all Iraqi missions to open hotlines and activate special accounts on social media sites around the clock, and achieved many qualitative practical responses.
The most prominent of them was to return Iraqis who want to the homeland, as the missions registered names, prepared lists with names, approached the Foreign Ministries in the workplaces of those missions, and also addressed the Ministry Headquarters to open the airspace in coordination with the Ministry of Transport and Iraqi Airways , as we addressed the European Union in 29/3/2020 to open its airspace to the Iraqi national carrier, and to use their airports to evacuate the Iraqis stranded there, and Germany and Spain responded to Iraq’s request to open their airspace for Iraqi air, starting this week.
We have been able to coordinate the return of about 4462 people from different countries of the world, including: Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, India, Russia, Belarus, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and our embassies are still gathering the numbers of those who want to return until they are all evacuated.
Today an incoming flight from Saudi Arabia is carrying 166 persons, two flights from Cairo carrying 324, and a fourth flight from Malaysia with 349 to return the Iraqis stranded there.
Our embassy in Amman will also evacuate 115 Iraqis from Anbar who were stranded in Jordan by land, in addition to that, our embassy in Kuwait coordinated with the competent authorities there to transfer 166 Iraqis soon.
5 deaths were recorded, among the Iraqi community caused by Coronavirus, 4 in UK and 1 in Sweden. And 18 new cases of infection, 10 in Sweden, 7 in UK , and one in Russian Federation for the Iraqi community with Coronavirus.
The total number of Iraqi community infected worldwide is (243), distributed as follows:
US 40
Norway 37
Germany 24
Sweden 33
UK 20
• Canada 16
Jordan 15
Belgium 11
Denmark 10
Italy 7
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 4
France 6
Austria 5
Netherlands 5
UAE 2
Lebanon 2
Finland 1
Malaysia 1
Spain 1
Iran 1
Russia 1
The total number of deaths worldwide is (26) distributed as follows:
UK 13
Sweden 4
Germany 3
US 3
Netherlands 1
Belgium 1
Denmark 1
Recovery cases worldwide (52) distributed as follows:
Belgium 11
Sweden 9
Jordan 9
US 5
UK 5
Austria 4
Canada 4
Denmark 2
Iran 1
Saudi Arabia 1
Spain 1