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Coronavirus: hundreds of Taiwan travellers stranded in Philippines due to ban on Chinese tourists
- Some flew in to Manila, only to find they could not pass immigration
- Others were heading home, only to find their flights had been cancelled
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Hundreds of people were left stranded in Philippine airports on Monday night after the country began enforcing a ban on travellers from Taiwan entering the country.
The Philippines Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday afternoon that because the World Health Organisation classified Taiwan as part of China, travellers from there were being included in a temporary ban on tourists from China, Hong Kong and Macau. That ban was implemented on February 2 by President Rodrigo Duterte in an effort to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Taiwan does not consider itself a part of the People’s Republic of China, but is regarded by Beijing as a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The island has recorded 18 confirmed cases of the virus and no fatalities; the Philippines has three confirmed cases and one death.
According to Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau, about 540 tourists and 21 Taiwanese tour groups were stranded in the Philippines as of Tuesday afternoon.
A spokesperson from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Manila told the South China Morning Post that some of them had not even left the airport. “We were quite taken aback by the implementation [of the ban],” said the spokesperson.
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