Following several anxious weeks of waiting, 325 students who had been left stranded in Northern Cyprus due to measures taken to curb the spread of COVID-19 were returned to the Kurdistan Region on Monday.

The students were flown in to Erbil International Airport and have been placed into quarantine for a period of two weeks.

“We flew home 325 students from Cyprus today. They’ll undergo proper tests, quarantine, other health measures to keep everyone safe from #Covid_19,” Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesman Jotiar Adil tweeted Monday evening.

He had previously told reporters the flight was sponsored by the KRG, but thanked the Iraqi government for making it possible.

A group of 176 students studying at institutions in Turkey and Northern Cyprus had signed a petition, seen by Rudaw on March 21, calling on the KRG to open the Turkish border for a single day to allow them to return.

Some of these students returned to the Kurdistan Region via the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing last week.

The deadline for Kurdistan Region citizens to return and submit to a period of quarantine expired on March 17 – meaning anyone still beyond its borders must now wait out the storm.

When cases of COVID-19 began to emerge in the Kurdistan Region, the government took several containment measures, including a flight ban and border closures.

Rudaw