The police intervened to ferry 370 people stranded in the Western Province to their hometowns yesterday. They will be the first batch of over 50,000 people waiting to return to their homes under this program.
According to statistics gathered by the Police, about 52,000 people have been stranded in the Colombo, Kalutara and Gampaha districts since the end of March after the imposition of an island-wide curfew due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though the curfew was relaxed in other districts, the Western province was identified as a high-risk area for Covid-19 and as a result these people were barred from returning to their homes.
In the mission of sending them back to their homes, the police selected the most affected in the Kelaniya Police division for the first phase, including pregnant women, mothers with small children, patients, and persons with special needs. These people were transported in buses procured from the SLTB.
The transportation was conducted under strict health guidelines, which included fumigation. The people were transported to the Police Station nearest to their hometown and the respective Police Station would be responsible for transporting them safely to their homes.
All these individuals are advised to maintain a 14-day self-quarantine period. The entire operation was conducted under the supervision of Senior DIG Western Province Deshabandu Thennakoon.
