About 2500 Cypriots and permanent residents stranded abroad have asked to be repatriated in the first half of May, and a new call centre was set up at the Zenon coordination centre in Larnaca yesterday to better process queries, CNA reports.
The call centre is run by volunteers from Civil Defence and officials from the Zenon coordination centre and the Transport Ministry.
Christos Papamichael, a Transport Ministry official told CNA that after problems with the first repatriation flights, the new call centre was set up yesterday to offer a better service to those who asked to be repatriated.
Within the first day, the centre received 750 calls. About 2500 have asked to be repatriated in the first half of May from the UK, Greece and other European countries and arrangements are being made for flights, he said.
“We want to apologise to all those who called and we were unable to answer their call. We will try to process as many people as we can,” he said.
The telephone centre works from 9 am to 10.
“Our aim is to repatriate people who are stranded abroad something we are certain to achieve,” he added.