Reuters :
The United Arab Emirates will bar entry to non-UAE resident travellers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka starting on Wednesday to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it said on Monday.
The UAE last month banned entry to travellers from India to guard against the spread of the highly contagious Indian variant.
“Flights between the four countries will continue to allow the transport of passengers from the UAE to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka,” the Gulf state’s National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA) said.
The ban includes transit flights coming from those countries. Transit flights to those countries can continue.
UAE citizens, long-term residency holders – known as “golden visa” holders – and diplomats are not included in the ban, which comes just ahead of the Eid festival celebrating the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
To enter the UAE from the four countries, people must have been in another country for at least 14 days beforehand, NCEMA said.
Meanwhile, Thailand has closed its border to foreign travellers arriving from Bangladesh on the back of the first confirmed cases of the Indian variant of Covid-19 in the country.
The country has also banned travellers from Nepal and Pakistan.
There has been a ban on foreigners coming from India entering Thailand since May 1.
Thailand Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said on Monday the Thai embassies in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan had now also stopped issuing certificates of entry for non-Thai nationals, from May 10 until further notice.
Thai nationals were still allowed to apply for the document, which is needed to return to Thailand during the epidemic, he said.
The ban followed the detection of the Indian variant, coded B.1.617.1, in a Thai woman and her son who arrived from Pakistan, announced by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration on Monday.
The CCSA had indicated earlier on Monday, during its daily briefing, that entry would be banned from three more countries amid concerns of more cases of the Indian variant.
A certificate of entry is currently compulsory for all people wanting to come to the kingdom.
