The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation has started to fit out some of its facilities to take in those Spanish tourists that the Spanish embassies and consular offices are seeking alternatives for, to facilitate their return to Spain.

This is the case of the emergency hostel set up in the Cervantes Institute in New Delhi (India) which, as from Saturday night, has taken in some 20 Spanish tourists who were in the north of the country. The group arrived in the Indian capital on a bus rented out by the Spanish embassy in which a total of 24 tourists arrived, five of whom preferred to stay in a hotel.

A 21-day lockdown has been decreed in India, where just over 200 Spanish tourists expressed an interest in returning to Spain, for whom different options are being developed that could be ready to be set in motion next week.

The Cervantes Institute in New Delhi has made a huge effort to fit out 16 classrooms and provide them with whatever is necessary to take in up to 64 people should this prove necessary. This is one of the alternatives for those tourists that are waiting to return to Spain, which was also proposed in other countries, but which did not turn out to be necessary in the end.

This was also the case in Ecuador, where accommodation arrangements were made in Guayaquil but which were not necessary in the end as the situation was resolved following intense negotiations between the Spanish embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and the airlines. Another plane precisely took off from there on Sunday, coordinated by the Spanish Embassy in Ecuador on the route Quito-Guayaquil-Madrid with 300 Spaniards on-board; a similar number also left on Sunday from the Dominican Republic; another 200 from Montevideo (Uruguay), including the 37 scientists that had been aboard the vessel ‘Hespérides’.

The situation is returning to normal in Europe, where there has been excellent coordination between countries. The Spanish Embassies in Croatia and Slovenia, in coordination with the embassy in the United Arab Emirates, have arranged for six Spaniards, including two Erasmus students, and an Italian resident in Spain to depart on a Slovenian flight free of charge. Four Spaniards repatriated from the Emirates in an operation managed by the Croatian Government, who arrived in Zagreb on Sunday, also travelled on the same flight back.

The situation in the Asia Pacific region is starting to resolve itself in Indonesia, with 62 people leaving Bali, where the largest number of Spanish tourists are located, leaving in the last few hours. In addition, 22 Spaniards were able to leave on a flight chartered by the French authorities, three on a Portuguese flight and another two on a French flight.

The situation is similar in the Philippines, where most of the Spanish tourists are on the islands of Cebu and Palawan. The number of Spaniards on the latter island has dropped from 120 to 66. The efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation are now focused on Australia and New Zealand. The heavy restrictions on flights, the lack of supply and the difficulty in getting connections from other parts of the world are delaying operations for those Spaniards who wish to return home, who are being assisted by the embassies and consular offices in the region.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation has all 215 embassies and consular offices operational with more than 4,500 public servants assisting from different offices around the world those Spaniards who wish to return home. They are in ongoing contact with all of them on the hotline +34913948900 and via the different communication channels of the Spanish diplomatic representations (phone, web page and social media), to provide answers to this situation.