Hundreds of passengers from an American cruise ship, banned in five Asian ports for fear of the new coronavirus, began disembarking this Friday in Cambodia, after more than ten days of wandering at sea.
The first were greeted in the morning in Sihanoukville (south) by the Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, who offered them flowers as a sign of welcome.
Cambodia has given permission to the ocean liner to dock because "we pay more attention to human rights" than other countries, said the kingdom's strongman, regularly singled out by international observers in matters of freedom of expression or freedom of the press.
Traditional Cambodian scarves were then given to the tourists. "The show of support is overwhelming," said a passenger.
No cases of a new coronavirus have been identified and all passengers are expected to leave the ship during the day. They will then be taken to Phnom Penh, from where they will be repatriated by plane.
The 1,455 tourists on board the Westerdam had embarked on February 1 in Hong Kong, where nearly 50 infected people were identified. They then had to continue their trip to Japan.
But for fear of the epidemic which has already killed nearly 1,400 people mainly in mainland China, the liner was forbidden to dock in the Japanese archipelago, then in Taiwan, in the Philippines, on the American island of Guam and finally in Thailand. The passengers thus wandered at sea for more than ten days.
On Wednesday, Hun Sen authorized the ship to land in the port of Sihanoukville to "put an end to the disease of fear plaguing the world". The liner docked Thursday evening.
Cambodia, where only one case of coronavirus has been confirmed at this stage, is a close ally of Beijing, which has invested billions of dollars in the kingdom.
Hun Sen went to China last week to lend his support to the country in the midst of a health crisis and he refused, unlike most western countries, to evacuate his nationals from the Chinese province of Hubei, epicenter of the epidemic.
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