Coronavirus: demonstration in Ukraine against the return of evacuees from China

In Novi Sanjaryn, in the east of Ukraine, the number of demonstrators increased over the hours, fires were started and scuffles broke out against the return of evacuees from China on February 20. STR / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

A group of 70 people who had arrived from Wuhan, home of the coronavirus epidemic, were placed in quarantine in a military hospital in a small Ukrainian locality. But it took the intervention of the riot police to clear the doors of the establishment: for fear of a spread of the epidemic, residents blocked the access roads.

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The showdown lasted a good part of the day. For hours, the inhabitants of the small locality of Novi Sanjary (between Kiev and Kharkiv, in the east) remained hermetic to the arguments of the president or his Minister of the Interior dispatched on the spot.

In the morning, a few dozen people set up barricades on the road that the procession was to take with the returnees from the Wuhan region. The number of demonstrators grew over the hours, fires were started and scuffles broke out. Several armored vehicles even had to be deployed.

In front of the angry crowd, the Minister of the Interior tried to reassure: " these are absolutely healthy people (...) who have passed medical checks, " said Arsen Avakov. Earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky on Facebook promised that the evacuees would be " completely isolated ".

The head of state took the opportunity to lecture the demonstrators: " the attempts to block roads and hospitals, not to let Ukrainians return to Ukraine, do not show our good side, " he said. written.

Nothing to reassure or calm the concerned residents: repelled by riot police, according to the Segodnya website, demonstrators threw stones at the 7 buses, which ended up entering the site shortly before 9 p.m. local time. the military hospital.

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  • Ukraine
  • Health and Medicine
  • coronavirus

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