Two of them had been sleeping at an airport in Malaysia, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, while others were stuck in remote areas.

Many had started to lose hope as they were stuck in villages and remote areas, and unable to get to airports.

The CemAir mission was quite a challenge.

“We zigzagged across and filled up the airplane and on the way back we went to Morocco, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Congo - we collected them. Because people are dispersed across the continent often in small numbers, and in many cases, in very rural areas we were using personal contact, with people hearing about the flight and passing the message on to those in need,” said CemAir CEO Miles Van Der Molen.

One South African says he only planned to be in Morocco for seven days, but ended up stuck there for more than eight weeks.

“I have never been so happy to see South Africans, to be back in SA. I would like to thank CemAir for daring to take on such a flight - stopping in five different countries is no joke... for me the difficulty was financially. I had to spend a lot more money than I expected and I had obligations back home,” said Kwena Isadore Moabelo, a repatriated South African.

A number of South Africans are still stuck abroad and desperate to come home.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation says it’s dealing with this on a case-by-case basis and that some of the areas are difficult to get to.

“Close to 5,000 have been repatriated so far and we are continuing to appeal to those stuck to be patient with us as we are trying to negotiate and find ways on bringing them back home,” said Dirco spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele.

This coming week, several other South Africans are scheduled for repatriation from Kenya, Rwanda and Nigeria.

eNCA