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As China evacuates citizens from India, one dad cannot wait to see his children after months away
- An estimated 1,000 Chinese citizens stuck in coronavirus-hit India are returning on five chartered flights this week
- One of them said he feared getting Covid-19 in India, but has not experienced hostile treatment, even as China-India border tensions rose in recent weeks
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After being stuck alone in a flat in the southern Indian city of Bangalore for three months and in India for about 130 days, Chinese marketing professional Wang Mingtao will fly to Chongqing this week and is looking forward to finally being able to hug his two children when he returns to Jiangsu province after completing his quarantine.
The 37-year-old is among an estimated 1,000 Chinese citizens booked on five chartered flights bound for China between June 8 and 12 as Beijing continues to evacuate citizens from countries hard hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.
India has surpassed Spain as the fifth worst-affected country, with cases surging to 246,628 on Sunday. On Monday, the country of 1.3 billion people further eased lockdown restrictions by allowing the reopening of shopping centres and restaurants.
Wang, who works for Chinese multinational company, landed in New Delhi on February 2 on what he thought was a regular bimonthly business trip.
But two days later, India announced a ban on the entry of Chinese nationals as the mainland battled the initial stages of the outbreak. Wang wanted to return home but his colleagues who handle operations and technical roles were unable to travel from China and he had to stay in Bangalore and fill in for them.
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