Coronavirus Outbreak: Stranded Indian Fisherman in Iran, Students in Italy Send Evacuation SOS to Govt

New Delhi: Amid the massive outbreak of COVID-19 in Iran, over 60 Indian fishermen from Kerala stranded in the country have released a video urging the Indian government to bring them back.

In a video uploaded on Facebook, fishermen were seen saying that they are stranded at Azalur in Iran, due to outbreak of coronavirus in this country. “We are confined to our rooms and cannot leave," a man says in the video as he pans around to show over 20 fishermen standing in a room, reported NDTV.

In the same video, another fisherman said there are other people also who have been stranded in nearby rooms but they are not able to contact them. “There are many Indians working in different parts of Iran and are now stranded with hardly any food or water,” he added.

The stranded men appealed to the Indian central government to bring them back to their families. All the flights from Iran to India have been suspended which has affected them severely, another fisherman added.

Iran’s death toll from the coronavirus climbed Sunday to 54 — as the number of people in the country confirmed to have the deadly bug jumped overnight to 978 people, health officials said.

Taking cognizance of the situation, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Minister of External Affairs, S Jaishankar saying that hundreds of Indian fishermen are trapped in Iran's Azalur - of which around 60 are from Kerala.

The letter read, “I request you to direct the Embassy officials to take necessary steps & arrange for the safe return of these persons.”

Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has also written to S Jaishankar, “the stranded fishermen in Iran, many of whom are from Kerala, have legally secured work permits and have been hired by local fishing companies to work in the country."

Students stranded in Italy

A similar SOS was sent by stranded Indian students in Italy. Here, around 85 students have been stranded for a week in the University Town of Pavia in North Italy’s Lombardy region which has reported 17 deaths due to COVID-19 in the past few days.

Panic and fear gripped students after a non-teaching faculty member of the university was tested positive for coronavirus, following which 15 other staff members were quarantined.

Ankita KS, a student of international business and entrepreneurship told Times of India over phone that grocery stores in the city are running out of stock and they fear that situation might worsen in the coming days, therefore, they request the Indian government to intervene in the matter.

Out of 85 stuck students in Pavia, 25 are from Telangana, 20 from Karnataka, 15 from Tamil Nadu, four from Kerala, two from Delhi, and one each from Rajasthan, Dehradun and Gurugram.

The number of deaths globally in the new coronavirus outbreak has passed 3,000 mark on Monday, as China reported 42 more deaths. The new fatalities were all in the virus epicentre Hubei province, bringing the overall toll in mainland China to 2,912.