The world’s widening travel bans also prompted the
postponement of Africa’s biggest shop window for investment, as a glittering
top-name gathering in Abidjan was postponed.
After Angola, Mauritius and the Seychelles, Gabon and Rwanda
became the latest African nations to join Europe and other regions to halt
flights from South Africa or its neighbours.
South Africa — which says it is being made a scapegoat for
discovering the Omicron variant — reacted with dismay.
“It is quite regrettable, very unfortunate, and I will even
say sad, to be talking about travel restrictions imposed by a fellow African
country,” foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela said.
“What I don’t understand is that some of these African countries
that are doing this, know the struggles (that) as a continent we have, where
European countries will take this decision and impose travel bans,” he said.
South Africa, he noted, had recently made “substantial
donations” of vaccines to some of the countries that were now imposing flight
bans.
“When a fellow African country does that, especially in the
context where most of these countries are beneficiaries… it doesn’t make sense,”
he told an online news conference organised by the health ministry.
Dozens of nations from Europe to Asia have imposed travel
restrictions on South Africa and its neighbours since its scientists flagged
the variant, named Omicron, last Thursday.
Mauritius, Rwanda and Gabon became the latest African
countries to suspend flights.
Rwanda announced late Sunday that it was halting direct
flights to and from nine countries in southern Africa.
All passengers who landed from those countries in the past
seven days now have to spend a week in quarantine in designated hotels — at
their own cost.
In Libreville, the Gabonese transport ministry on Monday
announced a ban on the entry of travellers from eight southern African
countries “whose final destination is Gabon.”
The eight include Angola, as well as Botswana, Eswatini,
Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
‘False security’
On Saturday the director of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion
Authority, Arvind Bundhun, said in a statement that it was “with regret” that
the government took the decision to suspend all flights from southern Africa.
Angola — itself among the blacklisted southern African
nations — at the weekend suspended all flights to and from Mozambique, Namibia
and South Africa until further notice.
An outraged South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on
Sunday said the curbs were scientifically unjustified and called for them to be
“immediately and urgently” reversed.
Health Minister Joe Phaahla on Monday said many South
Africans had felt the country had hastened to go public with the discovery of
the new Omicron variant and that had it “kept quiet, travel bans would not have
happened”.
“But that would have been detrimental, because our approach
is for our citizens to not live in false security and false safety,” said
Phaahla.
South African scientists won applause from Namibian
President Hage Geingob, who said they had “unwittingly drawn fire and
condemnation” for their country.
Economic fallout
The travel restrictions have dealt a new blow to South
Africa’s tourism industry, which had hoped the southern hemisphere summer would
bring an influx of visitors from the well-heeled north.
The African Development Bank (AfDB), meanwhile, said its
2021 Africa Investment Forum, scheduled to run in Ivory Coast’s economic hub of
Abidjan from Wednesday to Friday, was being postponed until further notice.
Investment projects amounting to “several billion dollars”
had been readied for the forum, where investors and corporate chiefs meet, AfDB
President Akinwumi Adesina said in a press statement.
“Unfortunately, with rising global travel restrictions due
to the Covid-19 Omicron variant, and heightened concerns for health and safety,
it is necessary, regrettably, to postpone the event,” he said. “The health and
safety of everyone comes first.”
Ramaphosa was among several heads of state expected for the
forum, now in its third edition, which was for the first time being held
outside South Africa.
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