CHARLES KONG SOO

The par­ents of stu­dents in Ger­many and Is­rael want Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to ex­plain the cri­te­ria for grant­i­ng ex­emp­tions to cit­i­zens to be repa­tri­at­ed.

Sarah Per­mel, 19, is the first T&T and re­gion­al stu­dent to study at the East­ern Mediter­ranean In­ter­na­tion­al School (EMIS) in Hak­far Ha­yarok, Is­rael, where she re­cent­ly com­plet­ed her In­ter­na­tion­al Bac­calau­re­ate Diplo­ma Pro­gramme.

Be­cause of the wors­en­ing COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion in that coun­try and with an im­pend­ing po­lit­i­cal cri­sis there, Per­mel’s fa­ther Neil de­cid­ed to re­lo­cate her to the UK.

In Ger­many, one of the hard­est-hit coun­tries with 224,000 COVID-19 cas­es and 9,289 deaths, Aren­del Owen, 18, was due to grad­u­ate on May 24 from the UWC Robert Bosch Col­lege, in Freiburg, the first city to re­strict the move­ment of its res­i­dents. The col­lege ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed strict hy­giene pro­to­cols in a bid to keep the cam­pus COVID-19-free.

When the T&T Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the repa­tri­a­tion pro­gramme for na­tion­als in the UK and US, Owen’s par­ents, Rox­anne and Kei­th, de­cid­ed to move Aren­del to the UK for a bet­ter chance of be­ing repa­tri­at­ed.

Both sets of par­ents would like to see their chil­dren put on the next plane out of the UK back home.

Neil Per­mel said: “We have sent in her ini­tial ap­pli­ca­tion re­quest for ex­emp­tion via hard copy by hand on May 11, and a soft copy on May 18 via email to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion’s de­part­ment.

“When the min­istry said to send the ex­emp­tion ap­pli­ca­tion to a dif­fer­ent email ad­dress which did so on June 3. We did get a re­sponse the day af­ter ac­knowl­edg­ing re­ceipt from the of­fice. Since then we sent more than ten re­quests for up­dates.

To our sur­prise, we were wait­ing pa­tient­ly think­ing let it take its due course, maybe Sarah’s name is low on the list when we saw the ar­ti­cle in a dai­ly news­pa­per of an ath­lete in Italy re­joic­ing be­cause she re­ceived her ex­emp­tion let­ter. She sent in her ap­pli­ca­tion on June 5.

“This got us very an­gry be­cause we had sent in ours way be­fore that and we still can’t get a pos­i­tive re­sponse yet. This is un­fair, by now we should be able to bring her in,” he said.

He said the stu­dents’ predica­ment is be­com­ing dire, they can­not im­pose on the gen­eros­i­ty and good­will of their fam­i­lies and friends in the UK for ac­com­mo­da­tion in­def­i­nite­ly and the cost of liv­ing is high.

Per­mel said his daugh­ter did den­tal work which was ex­pen­sive and her bank card is ex­pir­ing at the end of the month.

Both fam­i­lies are plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to in­clude their chil­dren in the next flight as they are suf­fer­ing from emo­tion­al stress.

How­ev­er, they want­ed to make it clear that they are not ask­ing for any hand­outs, mon­ey, or even to put their chil­dren in state quar­an­tine. They are will­ing to pay to put them in ho­tel-su­per­vised quar­an­tine, but just want them brought home safe­ly.