Ismail Sabri says Wisma Putra is looking into means to bring home 10,484 Malaysians who are still stranded or potentially stranded in many countries across the world in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. – Bernama file photo
KUCHING: Wisma Putra is looking into means to bring home 10,484 Malaysians who are still stranded and potentially stranded in many countries across the world in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, said Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Speaking at the daily update press conference today, the Defence Minister said the employment of many of these Malaysians had been or was in the process of being terminated.
“When their employment is terminated, they may lose the contract of accommodation. Hence, they need to come home or they are considered stranded outside Malaysia.
“There are more than 1,000 of them in Oman, some of whom who worked as pilots or cabin crew have had their employment terminated. They have to return to our country,” he said in Putrajaya.
Ismail Sabri conceded that the government was facing some issues in bringing these stranded Malaysians home given that some countries, which were still categorised as ‘critical’ for Covid-19 infection, had not relaxed their international borders.
According to him, some of these Covid-19 critical countries did not even allow domestic flights to land at their international airports.
“Even if we want to dispatch our aircraft there, some countries still do not allow foreign aircraft as they still closed their doors to foreign visitors.
“Hence, we will continue to pay attention to the needs of these stranded Malaysians in countries which have been categorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as critical,” he said.
Ismail Sabri said Wisma Putra had drawn up plans to bring back these stranded Malaysians.
One of the plans, he said, was to dig into the Covid-19 Fund under the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) to cover the costs of bringing home the stranded Malaysians.
“The special (Cabinet) meeting today has agreed to use the Covid-19 Fund under Nadma to bring back stranded Malaysians. Last time, we use the fund for domestic needs such as providing food aids for those in need.
“Now we plan to extend the assistance to bring home stranded Malaysians especially those in countries categorised as critical and high-risk,” he added.
He also appealed to the community to continue rendering their assistance by contributing to the fund so as to help the government bring home stranded Malaysians.