The UK government on Tuesday began putting in place processes involved as part of a historic GBP 75-million rescue effort to evacuate thousands of British citizens stranded abroad, including in India, due to border closures amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Addressing the daily Downing Street briefing on Monday evening, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had said that he had spoken to his Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar, among nearly 20 other foreign ministers over the weekend as he announced the new plan to charter special flights to bring back British nationals who find themselves stranded in the COVID-19 worldwide travel lockdown.
"We've not faced challenges in getting people home from abroad, on this scale, in recent memory," said the Cabinet minister, second in command to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson -- who remains in self-isolation after his COVID-19 diagnosis last week.
"Over the weekend, I spoke to foreign ministers from Australia, New Zealand, India and Brazil and Pakistan, and I also spoke to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, and in all of those cases urged them to work with us and keep commercial routes flying," said Raab.
Under the rescue effort being finalised, the minister said the UK government had struck a deal with airlines to evacuate British nationals from certain priority countries where commercial routes are non-operational, with India being one of them
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