Kuwait suspends commercial flights from India amid COVID-19 surge

Amidst reports of mounting coronavirus cases in India, the Kuwaiti cabinet has decided to impose a ban on all direct commercial flights with India from April 24 until further notice, state-run KUNA reported on Saturday.

Earlier, the Arab state did suspend entry for non-Kuwaitis excluding nationals, medical personnel, relatives of Kuwaiti citizens and accompanied domestic workers, diplomats and minors below the age of 18. However, the new directive requires everyone to be quarantined in another country for at least 14 days before their entry in case the travellers are from India or made transit through the country. The ban exempts Kuwaitis and their direct relatives such as husband, wife or children and their domestic workers. Cargo services will not be affected.

The Government Communication Center took to Twitter saying that the imposed ban of entry to those that are coming from the country, whether coming directly or through other countries will be strictly followed unless they reside outside of the Republic for at least 14 days, KUNA noted. The cabinet stated that the decision was also taken because of the challenges the Indian health sector continues to face and due to the indefinite shortage of oxygen supplies and vaccines.

On Friday, India recorded 332,730 new cases of coronavirus, setting a new daily record for the pandemic while covid-related deaths were totalled at 2,263 within 24 hours. With the Supreme Court of India calling the situation a national emergency, authorities have imposed a complete lockdown in the capital New Delhi for six days to curb the spread of the virus.