'Give SAR Passport Holders Priority For India Help'

The SAR government is working to bring home more than a thousand SAR residents stranded in India due to a Covid-19 lockdown in the country, pro-Beijing legislator Priscilla Leung said on Thursday.

But she said it will be no easy task, and although she is keen to see everyone getting help to return to Hong Kong, the administration should give priority to those holding SAR passports. Those who had travelled to India on foreign passports could be made to wait longer, she said.

Leung told the media that the Foreign Ministry is sorting out the arrangements for an evacuation, along with the Hong Kong government.

She said many of those desperate to come home are suffering in very difficult living conditions, some without access to medical care, and others even forced to sleep on the streets because they have nowhere else to go.

But the lawmaker said it won't be possible to bring back all of them at the same time, so they will have to be divided into groups.

"We need to consider the capability of Hong Kong … the testing facilities and the quarantine accommodation," she said.

Leung, from the Business and Professionals Alliance, said around 200 of those stuck in India hold SAR passports and they should be helped first, while the hundreds of stranded permanent SAR residents with foreign passports would have to wait.

Almost 700 Hong Kong people are said to be trapped in the Indian state of Punjab, with some 670 others scattered across the country.