Around 70 people flew from Chinese Wuhan to Kharkiv airport in eastern Ukraine on Thursday.

The evacuees - 45 Ukrainians and 27 people with foreign citizenship - were then taken by bus to the hospital in Novi Sanzhary in central Ukraine to be placed in a 14-day quarantine.

Thrown stones

Upon arrival in the city, the buses were met by an angry mob who blocked the road. Angry protesters threw stones at the buses, lighting fires on the road to prevent the convoy from reaching its destination.

- We do not want this to be an isolated zone. We will continue to live here and we do not want this to be a new Wuhan, says one of the protesters to the news agency AP.

The police eventually managed to break the roadblock and give the buses free shelter to the hospital.

False mail

According to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), a fake email may have triggered the protests.

The e-mail, which is said to come from the Ukraine Ministry of Health, states that several of the evacuees carry the corona virus. However, Ukraine's health minister has dismissed the information and announced that none of the evacuees are infected.

Several government representatives, including Ukraine's prime minister, interior minister and health minister, have traveled to Novi Sanzhary to calm down the situation.

Calls for sympathy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has in a comment urged the protesters to show sympathy for the evacuees.

“There is another danger that I would like to draw attention to. The danger of forgetting that we are all human and Ukrainian. Every one of us, even those who happened to be in Wuhan during the ongoing epidemic, ”he says according to the BBC.