Turkey evacuates over 122 nationals from West Africa

IZMIR, Turkey

At least 122 Turkish nationals have been evacuated to Turkey from the West African nations of Burkina Faso and Guinea following repatriation requests due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

As part of Turkey’s worldwide operations to bring back its citizens for Ramadan amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Turkish citizens were returned to their homeland on flights with the support of Turkish ministries and the respective Turkish embassies.

The Turkish government has repatriated around 60,000 of its nationals from various countries since the start of the pandemic.

As of Sunday, Turkey registered a total of 3,397 deaths due to coronavirus, while more than 63,000 people have recovered from the disease. There are currently 126,045 confirmed cases in the country.

Since first appearing in Wuhan, China last December, the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has spread to at least 187 countries and regions, with the US and Europe the hardest-hit areas.

More than 3.5 million cases have been reported worldwide, with the death toll surpassing 247,000 and more than 1.1 million recoveries, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the US.

* Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur