(Jamaica Gleaner) Michael Forrester, one of the 115 Jamaicans who were stranded in the United Kingdom and arrived aboard a TUI charter flight yesterday, revealed that his main reason for leaving his homeland was to tend to his elderly mother. Now that he has returned, he is pledging never to go back.
Among those who have returned are the 43 Marella Discovery 2 crew members who anchored south of Port Royal in April but were denied landing.
“It is good to be home! I went away to get my mom down from England. She is in her sixties and she said she wanted to return to have the best years of her life down here,” he told The Gleaner, his face radiating relief.
“As you can see here, I am never going back.”
Forrester departed the island three years ago but said that passport complications delayed his return. He said that when he was finally able to leave, the Jamaican Government had closed its borders to inbound passengers to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.
When he got wind of a plan to repatriate Jamaican cruise workers who had docked in Southampton, UK, after circuitous voyages, he reached out to various authorities who helped to secure seats for him and his family aboard the charter flight.
Triston Gordon, one of the Marella Discovery 2 crew members who arrived on the flight, said that life on the vessel, despite restrictions on movement on board, was not unbearable.
“My condition, it wasn’t that bad. I was just mostly concerned about my personal hygiene. I didn’t have soap, roll-on, and toothpaste because we couldn’t go anywhere, so I had to do what my grandma taught me.
“I used other stuff like maybe Fab (soap powder) to take a shower or salt to brush my teeth,” Gordon said.
Another crew member shared similar sentiments, stating that “the greatest thing is life” as he pulled his suitcases across the arrivals floor of the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston to board Jamaica Urban Transit Company buses waiting outside to ferry them to a St Ann facility, where they will be quarantined for the next 14 days.
Bus operators were decked in personal protective equipment.
On April 2, the Marella Discovery 2 stopped near Port Royal, refuelled, and waited for hours for docking clearance but left a day later when there was no response from the Jamaican Government.
The vessel then went to the Dominican Republic, where its nationals disembarked before it set sail for Portugal.
Attempts to dock in Portugal were refused, before the vessel was rerouted to Southampton, England.
In the meantime, attorney-at-law Jayson Houslin, who is stuck in Belgium along with five other Jamaicans, is also hoping to be rescued.
Houslin disclosed that he left Jamaica on March 10 – the same day the island recorded its first coronavirus case – to vacation in Thailand but cut short his trip when he heard that the Jamaican borders were on the verge of closure.
Houslin and his companions flew to Belgium to get a connecting flight to Jamaica, but officials of TUI, the same airline that transported the stranded Jamaicans yesterday, told them that they were fully booked. Belgium has recorded more than 50,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 8,400 deaths.
“We have been trying to get a flight to Jamaica from the 20th, the 21st, all those days … . We are left here in limbo. We have been here in an Airbnb since the 21st of March until now, paying US$53 a night, plus paying for food,” said Houslin, who is worried about his depleting resources.
The 115 returnees, including 75 ship workers, are among about 330 Jamaicans whose accommodation and food bill, of $64 million, will be borne by the Holness administration during quarantine.
Gleaner analysis projects that taxpayers would have to cough up another $758 million, at the Government’s new peg of US$1 to J$145, for accommodation and food if the remaining 4,670 Jamaicans who have expressed an interest to return are state-quarantined at US$80 per day per person for 14 days.
All told, the price tag would hover around $822 million, not counting medical, security, and logisitics expenses.