A jet from Mexico arrived in China on Tuesday on a mission that includes stops in four Chinese cities to bring home dozens of Mexicans quarantined under strict swine flu measures. The trip, which takes in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou in the south, and Hong Kong, comes after China at the weekend suspended flights to and from Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, leaving tourists at both ends stranded.
Amid frosty ties with Mexico over Beijing's handling of its nationals, a chartered AeroMexico flight landed first in Shanghai where it was due to collect around 70 Mexicans, including 43 quarantined there. At a Shanghai hotel, armed police supervised masked medical staff in protective clothing transferring Mexicans into about 30 ambulances taking them to the airport, said Eastday.com, a website run by the city government. In Beijing, eight quarantined Mexicans were taken to the airport and left the capital, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The AeroMexico flight will also pick up 12 people in Hong Kong, according to the territory's government. But Hong Kong's only confirmed case of swine flu, which precipitated China's suspension of flights, would not be allowed to join the other Mexicans going home, the territory's under-secretary for food and health Gabriel Leung said.
The jet was also due to fly home Mexicans who had not been quarantined but were stuck in China after Beijing suspended flights to Mexico, with 152 people expected to go back in total, a Mexican diplomatic source in Beijing told AFP. Mexican diplomats have complained that 70 of their nationals were put in isolation in mainland China despite showing no signs of the (A)H1N1 virus.
Some of the quarantined Mexicans had travelled to China on board the same flight that carried an infected Mexican man - Asia's first confirmed case of swine flu - who is now in a Hong Kong hospital. The illness, which appears to have originated in Mexico, has spread across more than 20 countries and killed 26 in all.
Defending its handling of the affair, China denied targeting Mexicans with its flu measures, saying they were "not directed at Mexican citizens and are not discriminatory." And in a statement on the central government's website Tuesday, China said it would continue to impose strict medical examinations on travellers from flu-affected countries and regions.
Waiting at Mexico's embassy to secure a seat on the flight, Mexican Pedro Diaz described how some hotels had refused to take him in after seeing his passport. The 28-year-old had been stuck in Beijing by the flight suspensions.
China, meanwhile, also sent a plane to Mexico to fetch 200 of its citizens stranded by the flu crisis there, China Southern Airlines said in a statement, after the two countries agreed to a repatriation deal. Amid further discontent with how China was dealing with international visitors from countries with confirmed flu cases, Canada has asked Beijing to explain the quarantine at the weekend of 22 students.