Coronavirus: Ukraine minister joins China evacuees in quarantine after protesters clash with police
- Demonstrators broke bus windows as evacuees hid their faces or waved Ukrainian flags
- ‘I will spend the next 14 days with them, in the same premises, under the same conditions,’ Zoryana Skaletska said
Ukraine’s health minister said she will spend two weeks in quarantine with evacuees from coronavirus-hit China after protesters clashed with police and threw stones at returnees over infection fears.
Kiev’s efforts to treat 45 nationals and 37 foreigners, mostly from Latin America, in the central Poltava region sparked unrest on Thursday as residents blocked roads and hurled stones at buses carrying the evacuees.
“I will spend the next 14 days with them, in the same premises, under the same conditions,” Health Minister Zoryana Skaletska said late Thursday in a statement addressed to the residents of Novi Sanzhary.
The minister added that she was shaken by the panic and aggression.
“These people are our compatriots,” she wrote on Facebook. “We live in one country and have to take care of their health and safety.”
