Bring back our children– Angry parents of Ghanaian Students in China.

Angry parents of Ghanaian students stranded in coronavirus-infested China have warned the Akufo Addo government to evacuate their wards from the epicentre of the deadly flu-like virus in Wuhan-China.

The distraught parents, who held a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, 18 February 2020, say they are ready to bear the cost of the evacuation and have strongly condemned the Health Minister’s strange statement that the government was packaging loads of hot pepper sauce “Shito” and Kenkey for the upkeep of the stranded students.

One of the parents, Mr Nhyira Agyapong, a lawyer, whose daughter and nephew are studying in China, spoke to Class FM in a report seen by Whatsup News

“…we, as parents, are saying that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo should take steps and bring the children back home. If it is about the expenses involved, we, the parents, are ready to bear those expenses”, he said.

Mr Agyapong also said he was “disappointed” with the Minister of Health, Kweku Agyemang-Manu, for talking about how the government has provided food items to the Ghanaian students in China, including Gari and Shito, wondering: “Is that what they need?”

The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu has said, the Ghanaian government response to stranded Ghanaian students in the coronavirus Covid-19 infested Wuhan in China would be to load up Kenkey and hot sauce “Shito” to them.

There are over 300 Ghanaian students caught at the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus amidst reports of government abandoning them to their fate. It is unclear how much succour the Kenkey and Shito will bring to these desperate students.

Mr Agyemang Manu, says the decision to fly the food items to the students was arrived “at a meeting last week Thursday, because they (the students) are complaining that they are safe where they are, only that they are running out of stock of food, so we should send them food…they have lost appetite for Chinese foods.”

“ Ayorkor (Foreign Affairs Minister) was angry that, when she sent people to buy the shito, they came back to say one bottle costs GHC 80, so she won’t buy that shito, but would personally go to market to buy some at a cheaper price; so we are thinking of them; day by day we are talking with them,” the minister said.

Even though several countries with students in Wuhan are evacuating their citizens to containment centres, the Ghana Health Service and the Health Ministry has categorically stated that evacuating the scared Ghanaian students “is not an option for now”.

The Foreign Affair Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botwey has recently reinforced the government’s position not to evacuate the students from China.

The students in China reportedly includes children of ruling party members have made several pleas for evacuation, including through the China chapter of the National Union of Ghana Students for government to evacuate them so they can escape being infected or dying from the Covid-19 which has reportedly infected over 60,000 people so far and have killed nearly 2000 as at the last count.