Covid-19: UAE suspends entry of travellers from Indonesia, Afghanistan

The UAE has suspended the entry for travellers and transit passengers from Indonesia and Afghanistan starting from Sunday, July 11, the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Emergency Management Authority (NCEMA) announced on Saturday.

The move also covers travellers who were in these countries 14 days prior to coming to the UAE.

Transit and cargo flights to and from these countries will continue, the GCAA said in a statement.

The ban will exclude UAE nationals and their first-degree relatives, diplomatic missions between the countries, official delegations, businessmen – who need to receive prior approvals – as well as golden and silver residency permit holders.

Holders of ‘essential jobs’ (according to the classification of the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship), the staffs of UAE embassies in the Indonesia and Afghanistan and crews of foreign freight and transit planes are also excluded from the decision.

All those in the excluded category will need to present a negative Covid-19 test obtained within 48 hours of departure, a mandatory 10-day quarantine and a PCR test at the airport as well as another test on the fourth and eighth days of entering the country.

As such UAE citizens have been prohibited from travelling to Indonesia and Afghanistan, except for those working in the country’s diplomatic missions in these countries, emergency treatment cases, official delegations, and previously authorised economic and scientific delegations.

NCEMA called on all travellers affected by the decision to communicate with the airlines to amend and reschedule their flights.

Both Indonesia and Afghanistan have seen a spike in cases this month.

Indonesia recorded more than 30,000 new daily Covid-19 cases in the past few weeks, and nearly 39,000 new cases on Thursday and Friday.

As of Friday, July 9, the country had reported more than 2.4 million infections in total and over 64,600 deaths due to the virus.