A Holland-based Guyanese woman and her three-year-old daughter have been denied entry into Trinidad and Tobago after immigration officials flagged her for failing to meet the country’s COVID-19 entry requirements.
The woman, June Ann Gravesande was travelling to Guyana with her daughter, mother and nephew to attend the funeral of her father. However, the woman, who was once a COVID-19 victim is vaccinated with a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
“In Holland if you contracted COVID you are only required to get one shot of the vaccine. They say you already have the antibodies so you are not required to have both doses. My vaccination card says one of one but when I get here and was about to in transit for the flight to Guyana they didn’t allow me,” the frustrated woman related to this newspaper from her isolation room in Trinidad and Tobago.
Gravesande and her daughter Daisy Gravesande arrived in Trinidad on Saturday on a KLM flight and were expected to board a Caribbean Airlines flight to Guyana. Her mother and nephew were granted approval to travel after satisfying health authorities on their vaccinations.
According to the woman, after the death of her father, she “scrambled” to make travel arrangements but didn’t think her vaccination status would have affected her.
“They say fully vaccinated and my travel agent say fully vaccinated so I went with what Holland is saying as fully vaccinated but they were not accepting that here. If I was not fully vaccinated I could not have left Holland or even boarded the KLM flight,” Gravesande noted.
She said she told the immigration authorities to scan the QR code on her travel documents to have a full understanding of what she was relating but they ignored her.
The woman said she pleaded with immigration officers to have empathy towards her since her travel plans are based on an emergency. She added that she even offered to be vaccinated in Trinidad or on arrival in Guyana but the authorities denied her request.
“I don’t have COVID, my PCR is negative all I wanted to do is come home and bury my father that is it. I am not coming in Guyana to party. I haven’t seen my father since 2016 and all I want to do now is to get closure and see him laid to rest,” the frustrated woman sobbed.
“If only there can be some miracle for me to come home and see my father laid to rest. My heart will be at ease… I didn’t focus on what fully vaccinated mean for these countries cause I was just rushing to get things in place to travel,” the woman said.
Adding to her plight, the woman explained that the room in which she and her daughter are being accommodated is not fit for dwelling.
“It feels as if I am a criminal all because of a vaccine. They brought me and my daughter to this room and lock us in. There are two windows but you cannot open them. They take my passport and they just leave us in this room. I cannot go outside or anything,” the woman said. She is being accommodated at a facility close to the Piarco International Airport.
The situation, she explained has plunged her into a state of depression.
“This place smells, it is not accommodating for anyone much less me and my daughter. It is two days inside a room with no sunlight or fresh air or anywhere to go. God forbids a fire here, we would not be able to escape,” the woman lamented.
She noted that her daughter who is not accustomed to eating the meals provided was forced to do so out of hunger.
“They give us food but my daughter keeps asking for her ‘bobo’ [porridge] but I don’t even have milk or hot water to make it for her. I ask the lady here but I am still waiting,” she cried, as she explained her situation.
The woman, who is originally from No. 42 Village, West Coast Berbice is pleading with authorities here to assist her. She has been informed by immigration authorities in Trinidad and Tobago that she will be sent back to Holland on a flight today.
