Stranded for 2 months, no updates from govt, Indians in North Africa seek help

In neighbouring Algeria, nearly 150 Indians are seeking help from the government to return home.

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For the past month, Brijesh Mistry’s 15-year-old daughter, a Class X student in Gujarat’s Vadodara, is waking up at 4.30 am to attend online classes in Casablanca, Morocco. “The schedule has begun to take a toll; she is struggling,” Mistry, 41, says.

“The cost of Internet in Morocco is very high—almost Rs 500 per day—and my daughter has classes six days in the week… Besides, we have run out of most of the vegetarian food we brought from India,” says Mistry, a structural engineer. He is among 140 Indians stranded in Morocco since the North African country imposed a lockdown on March 20 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

In neighbouring Algeria, nearly 150 Indians are seeking help from the government to return home.

Jamaludeen, 39, a textile mechanical engineer from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, arrived in Bejaia, “about two hours away from capital Algiers”, in mid-February. On March 17, airports in the country were closed. Jamaludeen says the Indian embassy in Algiers had informed them about a common flight for Indians stranded in North African countries “soon”, but they are yet to get any update.