Their reasons for traveling to Tahiti from Easter Island before the coronavirus pandemic varied, however, the more than two dozen people stranded for more than six months on the island of French Polynesia shared a non-unusual passage: they were only looking to move home.
This week, despite everything they will, thanks to the French State Department, which will send a French army plane to complete the 2,600-mile trek, the Associated Press reported.
“I’m so satisfied !!!” Kissy Baude, unofficial leader of the organization of stranded citizens, told the media: “We are very pleased and relieved that we can nevertheless return home and know that the Tahitians stranded in Rapa Nui will also return home on the same mission.
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Twenty-five people, adding seven children, have been stranded in Tahiti since March after COVID-19 forced LATAM airlines to cancel their return flights, according to the AP. Visitors were there for a variety of reasons, including work, vacation and medical care. Procedures.
The airline gives a normal return address from Santiago to Easter Island and then to Tahiti, but the address was suspended in March due to the virus, no other airline gives a similar address and LATAM would not have a timetable to restart it.
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The organization, which includes a young mother who recently gave birth without her husband, is said to have begged the government for months and even tried to play Chilean President Sebastion Piaera, as Easter Island is Chilean territory.
“I can’t cry anymore. My center is cold,” said Mihinoa Terakauhau Pont, 21, who gave birth to a son a few days ago.
Pont in the past told AP that she went to Tahiti in January to make a stopover on her first child, that she was staying on a nearby island with her parents, and that she was scheduled to return in March.
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According to AP, the French State Department intervened on the six-hour flight following a request from the Chilean authorities.
Baude said the organization would spend about 14 days in a fitness center when they returned to Easter Island, a remote island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, known for its giant head sculptures called moai.
Meanwhile, flight cancellations have stranded some 15 Citizens of Tahiti on Easter Island, and the rescue project will take them home.