'We don't belong in Thailand,' stranded South Africans want to come home
Updated | By Lauren Beukes
South African holidaymakers stuck in Thailand are desperate to return home.
Travel bans in the country and around the world have restricted international flight movement, leaving over 1 400 South Africans stranded abroad.
Coenie Kruger and his partner travelled to Thailand for his 50th birthday and arrived there on 15 March.
They were meant to return home on Thursday.
"Slowly but surely they [flights] all got cancelled. We arrived, and everything was fine. We never expected this to get out of hand then, even if it's only three weeks ago. Around about the 21st we got emails from Singapore Airlines to say that our flight back to South Africa has been cancelled."
READ: Joy, relief as exodus from Wuhan begins
Kruger says the lockdown is also going to be implemented in the Asian country this week.
For Chantal Steyl, a trip to the South East Asian country was a birthday surprise for her 17-year-old daughter and her husband.
She says they feel incredibly homesick.
"We miss our families, and our pets, and we miss having a feeling of belonging because we don't belong in Thailand we came here on holiday not to stay. We belong in South Africa, that is our home - it's a place where we were born. So nothing ever is going to feel right until we touch down in South Africa on our home soil."
Lee-Ann Machelm who's been in Thailand since 13 March, says they are confined to their hotel rooms.
"We are mostly indoors. We are not allowed to be outside, and even if we are inside the hotel, we are not allowed to sit in groups of more than two. We definitely are being scanned at supermarkets and pharmacies, and those are the only places we are allowed to go."
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