11,000 Russian travellers fly home from Egypt: deputy PM
Some 11,000 Russian tourists have
returned home from Egypt in the past 24
hours after Moscow suspended flights to
the country over the Sinai plane crash,
an official said Sunday.
“Over the past 24 hours some 11,000
people have been flown out,” deputy
prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich told
reporters, adding that more people were
set to return home later in the day.
“Today is the busiest day in this sense,”
he said at the Vnukovo airport outside
Moscow.
He added that Russia was sending a
number of experts to inspect Egypt’s
airports to see if security needed to be
beefed up there.
While it dismissed international
suspicions that the Russian jet that
crashed on October 31 over the Sinai
peninsula with 224 people on board was
bombed, Russia halted all flights to Egypt
on Friday.
Officials had said on Saturday that
nearly 80,000 Russian tourists were still
in Egypt, mainly in Sharm el-Sheikh and
Hurghada, and that they would be able
to return home at their own pace.
Following in Britain’s footsteps, Russia
said tourists returning home would fly
without their check-in luggage which
will be brought back to the country
separately.
Earlier Sunday an Il-76 plane of the
Russian emergencies ministry departed
Hurghada with some 30 tonnes of
tourists’ baggage.
The ministry added that the first Il-76
plane had already brought another 30
tonnes of luggage to Moscow.
The Kremlin insisted the decision to
suspend flights did not mean that
Moscow believed the crash was caused
by a deliberate attack.
Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee
said on Saturday that its experts were
continuing their work at the crash site
together with representatives of Egypt,
France, Germany and Ireland.
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