For nearly a week, Karen Rozembrá, 35, from São Paulo, has been going into hosting sites in South Africa looking for minimally decent options at a modest cost.
“I’ve been to three different places since Saturday [27], some dirty and not very safe,” she says, who is unable to return to Brazil due to restrictions imposed by the discovery of the omicron variant of the virus that causes Covid-19.
The sequencing of the new strain, announced by South African scientists on Thursday (25), had the almost immediate effect of closing a large part of the world to flights originating in South Africa and neighboring countries.
A resident of Cotia (SP), Rozembrá studied English in Cape Town for a month, and on Saturday (27) she went to the airport to return to Brazil, on a flight connecting to Dubai.
I was with a negative Covid test and relatively calm, because the closing of Brazil to South African flights would only take place from Monday (29). Arriving at check-in, however, he received information that the flight was cancelled, as decided by the authorities of the Middle East emirate.
“The airline [Emirates] gave a very vague explanation, they only said that they had to cancel it due to sanitary determination. We didn’t know what to do,” she said.
According to Rozembrá, around ten Brazilians who took the same course were in the same situation.
“I planned to stay for a month. When the exchange program ended, accommodation ended, health insurance, everything ended. The company said it didn’t offer anything because it wasn’t her fault,” he says.
She has been sharing accommodation with another Brazilian in the same situation. On average, he spends the equivalent of R$120 per night on a single room, plus accommodation and travel expenses.
He calculates that the loss has already exceeded R$800, money that has been drained from their savings in Brazil.
The paulista claims that a few airlines are operating from Cape Town’s airport, but with tickets at exorbitant prices, which reach R$ 10 thousand for just one way to São Paulo, with connections in Europe or Africa.
She says she is unable to pay that amount. A month before starting the exchange, Rozembrá was fired from a pharmaceutical company where she worked in the human resources sector. Even so, he kept the trip, which was already paid for.
The detained Brazilians are in contact with the country’s consulate in Cape Town, which has been trying to help by recommending cheap accommodation options.
Rozembrá asked the government for financial assistance, and for that she had to show bank statements from her and her parents, to demonstrate that she cannot afford to support herself for a long time. For now, there has been no response from the government to the request for help, however.
She says that the only way to resolve the situation is to send a Brazilian government plane to rescue her and others in her condition.
“We need a repatriation flight as soon as possible. We cannot wait until this situation is resolved,” he says.
The lack of perspective is frustrating, she says, who planned the trip as a way to invest in professional growth. “I planned this exchange for another year, I did everything right, I paid the ticket. And now when I return, my flight is canceled and I stay here in this dead end,” he says.
Itamaraty stated that embassies in African countries affected by flight restrictions are “watching closely the situation of Brazilians unable to travel, providing them with all the necessary consular assistance”.
According to the ministry, so far there have been 325 requests for assistance, concentrated mainly in South Africa.
“The stations abroad are carrying out negotiations with the airlines operating in the region, with a view to enabling Brazilians to board, that there are flights to Brazil, or that alternative routes be found,” said the folder.
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