Two women still in China

By REBECCA KUKU
TWO young Papua New Guinean women are still in Wuhan City, the epicenter of the global emergency- coronavirus outbreak – in China.
Ancilla Dalai, a third-year petroleum engineering student at the China University of Geoscience in Wahun, told The National that she chose to stay back “for personal reasons and for circumstances beyond my control, I could not make the flight”.
Dalai said her fellow Papua New Guinean Dorothy Yoka , a student at Hubei University of Technology, did not make the flight as well due to circumstances beyond her control.
“She was holidaying with her Chinese friends in another county when Wuhan went on lockdown.
“Initially she was to take the flight, but couldn’t make it to the airport,” she said.
Dalai, who was one of the first students to reach out for help to the PNG Government when coronavirus first broke out and Wuhan went into lockdown, said she posted the plea for help because it felt like it was the right thing to do.
“So reaching out for help, when everything here was shut down, not only for myself, but also my fellow countrymen here in Wuhan, was something that I did because it “was simply the right thing to do”.
“And I am grateful that my plea for help was heard and my fellow countrymen have now been evacuated with assistance from the PNG Embassy here in Beijing and the New Zealand government.”
Dalai said she had gone to China to study under a Chinese government scholarship.
“And the scholarship council through my school had opposed travel not only me but other foreign students leaving, saying it was too dangerous and risky to leave.
“So for various reasons, including in the event I couldn’t get on the flight due to having a high temperature for example, I wouldn’t be allowed back to school but sent to the hospital for quarantine, and also how sure was I that anyone who boarded the plane was already exposed to the virus.
“Hearing all this and weighing out the options I had, I decided to remain back in Wuhan, and I was assured by CSC through my school that they will cater for all my needs.”
Dalai also clarified that she was not speaking on behalf of other Papua New Guinean students in China, the decision to stay back was her own.
The 17 students who were evacuated from the Wuhan City by the New Zealand government are now in Auckland were they are been quarantined in a military/naval base just outside city.
They will be flown back to Port Moresby after 14 days in quarantine.