Finnish citizens in Cairo to be brought back to Helsinki on Wednesday

Even individual Finns travelling in Cairo will be offered seats on the plane

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Finns who live in the Cairo area on a long-term basis, as well as independent Finnish travellers who wish to leave, will be evacuated from the strife-torn area on Wednesday.
     
Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs will fly the Finns away from the Egyptian capital on a Finnair Airbus 321 being sent for the purpose.
      According to Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party), the aircraft did not take off on Monday, as it would not have been possible to gather together all willing home-comers quickly enough.
     
”The situation is changing all the time”, Stubb described conditions in Cairo, speaking in Brussels prior to a meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Monday.
      The European Union foreign ministers also discussed the situation in Egypt at Monday’s meeting.
     
The ministers are calling on the Egyptian government to take concrete measures in order to ensure free and honest elections in the country.
      Director Pasi Tuominen of the Unit for Consular Services at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs asserted on Monday that the Finnish Embassy in Cairo will be able to gather together all willing Finns for the evacuation flight, even though there have been some problems with data communications.
      ”Most of the Finnish citizens living in or visiting Egypt have updated their contact information with our embassy. We will be able to inform them of the exact timing of the flight”, Tuominen notes.
     
The evacuation flight is to take off from Finland on Wednesday morning and to return in the evening.
      According to the Foreign Ministry, a total of 3,500 Finnish travellers were in Egypt when the unrest broke out in the country.
      Those travellers who were participating in package tours organised by the Finnish travel agencies Aurinkomatkat and Detur were flown back to Finland on Monday morning. The customers of the Finnish travel organiser Finnmatkat will get back to Finland on Wednesday at the latest.
     
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has sent an evacuation aircraft to pick up Finns from crisis areas twice before.
      The first evacuation occurred when Finns were flown from the Chernobyl nuclear accident area in 1986, and the second one, when Finnish travellers were brought home after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in 2004, when nearly 200 Finns were among those who died.
      In 2006, Finland evacuated Finnish citizens from Lebanon together with other EU countries.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish citizens near strife-torn Cairo to be evacuated (31.1.2011)

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