Cyprus Mail 17 March 2020 - article by Jean Christou
Relatives outside larnaca airport on Monday night (Christos Theodorides)
Thirty students were among the passengers who arrived one of two easyJet flights from the UK Monday night and who have been taken to the Troodos quarantine where they will remain for 14 days.
As of 6pm on Monday entry to Cyprus is only permitted to citizens and legal residents who present a recent health certificate from an approved accredited organisation and/or a laboratory from their country of origin. The medical certificate must not be older than four days.
The easyJet flight from Manchester arrived at Paphos at 7.15pm, while the other was an easyJet flight from Gatwick which arrived in Larnaca at 7.30pm.
Tempers ran high as passengers on the flights were initially told they could not get disembark.
Following the intervention of the transport minister, the passengers were allowed to disembark but must be quarantined.
According to the Cyprus News Agency on Tuesday parents of the students who had been waiting for them to arrive at Larnaca, welcomed the government’s decision to allow them in.
Without seeing their parents, the students were shuttled to the Troodos presidential residence which has been set up for quarantine purposes.
The Paphos flight was mainly legal residents returning to Cyprus from the UK, the report said.
Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Ersin Tatar said there were also Turkish Cypriot students on the Larnaca flight.
The north has six confirmed cases of Covid-19.
