Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey
Government of Ghana is serving notice that it will not be responsible for Ghanaian nationals turning down evacuation offers from Ukraine.
The Ministry has revealed that some of the Ghanaian students studying in Ukraine have refused to be evacuated to Ghana, though government provided them with plane tickets.
The students are unwilling to come home and have opted to stay in Hungary and other countries.
With the closure of Ukraine’s airspace, the options available to Ghanaians have been countries such as Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
However, the government has expressed its willingness to evacuate all Ghanaian citizens in a coordinated manner.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, in a statement said, “the government will only evacuate Ghanaian nationals who are willing to avail themselves for the evacuation exercise and return to Ghana.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Government will NOT be responsible for those who decline the opportunity to be evacuated,”
Meanwhile, government of Ghana has successfully evacuated 26 more of its nationals following tensions in war-torn Ukraine.
This brings to 74, the total number of citizens who have so far arrived in the country safely.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration announced that the evacuees arrived at 2pm on Saturday, March 5, 2022.
“The Government of Ghana received an additional 26 Ghanaian nationals at the Kotoka International Airport, bringing the total number of Ghanaians evacuated to seventy-four (74) as of 2:00 pm, 5th March 2022”, the Ministry indicated.
Fourteen of the students arrived from Romania; nine from the Czech Republic, and three from Slovakia.
The newly arrived students were received by officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and the Government’s spokesperson on Governance and Security, Palgrave Boakye-Danquah.
By Vincent Kubi