Coronavirus Outbreak: Sonu Sood arranges charter flights for students stranded in Kyrgyzstan

Sonu Sood announced that he will be helping around 3,000 stranded students in Kyrgyzstan come back to India.

The first chartered flight from Kyrgyzstan to Varanasi will operate Wednesday (22 July), followed by charters for other states, the actor tweeted.

Many Indian students go to the landlocked Central Asian country to get their medical degree. But with the outbreak of novel coronavirus, the students staying at hostels could not come back due to travel restrictions. Now with the first flight from the country’s capital Bishkek to Varanasi, many stranded students will be reunited with their families.

The actor tweeted the news on Tuesday and said, “Time to come home."

This came after Sood asked students in need to send any information regarding evacuation to his email ID. Tweeting on 15 July, he had mentioned that his team does not ask for any money for rescuing them and people should be aware regarding the same.

Stranded students have been tweeting and asking for help from Indian authorities for a while now. Earlier a group of over 650 students from Tamil Nadu studying in the country had appealed to the Indian Embassy in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, to help them return home, writes The Hindu.

As the number of positive cases increased in Kyrgyzstan, the students were asked to stay inside their hostels. But MBBS students felt a crunch in supplies. Also as online classes have started, the students believe they can participate in them from home.

Sood has been receiving a number of requests from all across the world. One Twitter user stranded in Uzbekistan recently got a message of reassurance from the actor.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Sood, who catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will pen a book about his experience.