Two Kenyan doctors are still stuck in India after they were forced to give up their seat during a recent evacuation flight from Mumbai to Nairobi.
Dr Rachir and Dr Devika Patel, a couple, had gone to India to visit their families just before a lockdown in the country was imposed.
However, they say that they had to give their two seats to sick Kenyans who had been stuck in India and wanted to come back to Kenya.
“I received news about a repatriation flight, I was excited and immediately booked tickets for my wife, our six-month-old daughter and I, but unfortunately KQ cancelled my reservation at the last minute,” Dr Rachir said.
Kenya’s High Commission to India led by Willy Bett had earlier said that priority would be given to Kenyan patients and their caregivers to return to the country.
They returned to the country last week on Thursday via a chartered Kenya Airways flight.
The couple says that it understands the mission’s decision but would want a second round of repatriation after the first round got overbookings by 80 people.
On his part, Bett said that: “The issue of offloading was a Kenya Airways issue, ours was just to give them a list of patients, who had been declared fit to fly by their respective doctors,” he said.
There are now 17 Kenyans who are still stuck in India. Besides the medical couple, a 26-year-old Kenyan student who was studying in India, Linda Mugo is among those stuck.
“They said that the logistics from Odisha (a state located on the eastern coast of India) to Mumbai could not be facilitated because I am the only Kenyan here which is heartbreaking,” she said.
She says that since her internship is over, she is suffering as her finances are already low.
