Avoid travelling to Nepal for onward journey to third countries: Indian embassy

Kathmandu: The Indian Embassy here on Tuesday advised its citizens to avoid travelling to Nepal for the purposes of onward journeys to third countries after Kathmandu banned all foreign nationals from using the Himalayan nation as a transit point as part of its effort to combat the surge in the coronavirus cases.

Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification on Monday banning all foreign nationals from using the Tribhuvan International Airport as a transit point for third countries.

The restriction will be effective from April 28 midnight till further notice, the Department of Immigration of the Home Ministry said.

Citing the notification, the Indian Embassy in a travel advisory asked its citizens to avoid travel to Nepal for the purposes of onward journeys to third countries because of restrictions after Wednesday.

It also noted that the ongoing services provided to travellers arriving in Nepal as a final destination and departing from Nepal will be continued as usual.

The embassy is in contact with Nepalese authorities to facilitate the travel of bona fide Indian nationals already in Nepal, it said.

Nepal has so far recorded 304,000 cases and 3,176 deaths due to the disease.

India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals in several states are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.

With 3,23,144 people testing positive for the coronavirus in a day, the country’s infection tally climbed to 1,76,36,307 on Tuesday. The death toll mounted to 1,97,894 with 2,771 new fatalities, according to the union health ministry data