Eighteen people, members of six families, stranded for nearly two months in war-torn Libya landed at the Cochin international airport on Thursday to an emotional welcome by their family members.
The returnees, including 11 children, arrived by an Emirates flight by 8.30 a.m. via Istanbul and Dubai from Tripoli.
The families are from the central Kerala districts of Kottayam, Alappuzha, and Pathanamthitta.
Four families from Tamil Nadu, who were originally slated to arrive in Kochi, however, took a flight to Chennai from Dubai.
Most of the evacuees were staff at the Zawiya Teaching Hospital near Sabratha. Their predicament came to public attention with the death of a toddler and his mother, a nurse from Kottayam, in a missile attack in the last week of March.
Embassy unhelpfulThe group, fleeing the civil war, survived a risky passage from near their hospital to the Tripoli airport, poor accommodation, lack of water and electricity and outbreak of diseases. They were taken in by a Libyan national who accommodated them in three small houses by a beach.
This refuge was about 70 km from Tripoli airport and appeals to the Indian embassy in the capital city for safe passage bore little results, claimed the returnees.
They alleged that sometimes embassy officials did not even answer the phones. However, one of the returnees, said the situation was dangerous even for the embassy staff.
“They have escaped from the jaws of death,” said A. J. Joy, father of Nivya, a nurse who arrived here with her husband, Jobby, and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Joana. The family from Alappuzha vowed they would not return to the strife-torn country.
Maikkuttan Shanmugham, who arrived here with his wife, Raji, and daughter Mithra, said the situation in Libya was so bad that they would never think of going back despite their salaries for about six months being held up in banks.
The Libya returnees were received at the airport by officials of the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs.
They were provided with light refreshments as well as Rs. 2,000 each for onward travel. The officials also offered cars to those who had not arranged onward travel on their own.
