Coronavirus: France repatriates its nationals stranded in Bolivia

Text by: Alice Campaignolle

French tourists are still stranded around the world, prevented from returning to their country due to global air paralysis. Embassies are therefore hard at work trying to repatriate their nationals. It is not always a small matter, as in Bolivia where the last plane of return of travelers left Saturday evening.

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From our correspondent in La Paz,

It is 5 am and the city is deserted. Traffic is completely prohibited. A bus from the French Embassy criss-crosses La Paz to collect French and European tourists, heading for the airport.

It is the second and last flight chartered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to repatriate French people passing through Bolivia. Not easy to organize, as Denis Gaillard, French ambassador to Bolivia explains: “ As much for the first flight, we took people who were easily accessible, this time we went to look for them in the depths of the campaign , in tourist sites a little distant, but where they were retained. So they arrived last night, by bus and some by military aircraft. Those who came from Rurrenabaque came by military aircraft. "

Among passengers, feelings are mixed: disappointment to draw a line under his vacation, relief from joining his family, but also a certain sense of responsibility, like Camille.

“ The person we were staying with had less and less food, we were in a small village that was not supplied, so there were no longer too many basic necessities. So we felt that it was no longer too much for us to eat their food when we could go back and have access to everything at home, ”she explains.

If Bolivia currently has just over a hundred patients, the country does not have a health system capable of managing a serious epidemic. The 200 French returnees from Bolivia arrive in the morning at Roissy-Charles De Gaulle.

► Read also: Coronavirus: the state of the world facing the pandemic Saturday April 4

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