Among the many Corona memories, the story of a German national, with criminal background, stranded for long 55 days in the transit area of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport would remain at the top! The 40-year-old Edgard Ziebat, however, had left for Amsterdam on May 12.
Before his departure, Ziebat was scanned for coronavirus and then he got on a flight along with 291 passengers.
He landed in New Delhi from Vietnam in a VietJet Air flight as a transit passenger to Istanbul on March 18. The lockdown imposed in India due to Corona pandemic left Ziebat stranded at the Delhi airport along with few other passengers.
They were left with no other option but to stay at the transit area of the airport. The four other passengers, two from Sri Lanka and one each from the Maldives and the Philippines, were facilitated by their respective embassies and were quarantined. The German embassy, however, denied to take the custody of Ziebat owing to his criminal background.
“German embassy informed the Indian bureau of immigration that Ziebat has several cases of assault and other crimes registered against him and that they won’t take his custody given that he is in a foreign land,” an officer said on condition of anonymity.
Indian officials tried to accommodate him on a relief flight to Ankara (Turkey) but Turkish authorities turned down the proposal stating that the flight was only for Turkish nationals or for their permanent residents.
As all flights were cancelled and he could not leave the airport without a visa, hence, he was left with no other option but to remain in the transit area. The airport authority, however, was kind to him as they provided him with the essentials including a recliner to sleep, mosquito net, clothes and food.
