Thai citizens stranded in neighbouring countries due to Covid-19 pandemic are returning via border crossings that have been reopened since Saturday.

Border checkpoints on Thai-Malaysia borders have seen an influx on Thai migrant workers from Malaysia over the weekend.

Since the lockdown orders by Thailand and Malaysia last month, only some Thai workers had been able to return home.   Last week, the Thai government ordered reopening of 23 border crossings to allow Thais to return home beginning on Saturday, April 18.

Thousands of Thai citizens, mostly restaurant workers and fishermen, are believed to have stranded Malaysia.

Officials at the border checkpoints have enforced stringent health screening on the returnees.  Anyone who has fever is sent to for virus diagnosis at hospitals.  So far, none of them have been tested positive for the coronavirus.

Thai returnees are required to obtain official verifications from Thai embassies.

In Mae Sot district of Tak province, 49 Thai people arrived at a checkpoint on the border with Myanmar on Sunday.  They went through health screening procedure before being sent to a state quarantine facility.

Also on Sunday, a group of 162 Thai exchange students were repatriated from the United States.  After arriving in a chartered flight a U-tapao Airport, they were transferred to a hotel in Pattaya city which is used as state quarantine center.

Source: TNA