The School for Naval Airmen (SFNA) situated at the headquarter of Indian Navy’s Southern Command in Kochi has been converted into a quarantine facility and is being utilised for 127 Indian deportees from Bahrain. This batch arrived at the Cochin International Airport (CIAL) by a special Gulf Air flight on Sunday evening.
The deportees were brought from CIAL by special KSRTC buses by the district administration and handed over to naval authorities at naval base, Kochi. As per the standard operating procedure for the Covid-19 evacuations and directives from the government, the deportees were to be initially quarantined in a military base — at Kochi Naval Base where they would be regularly monitored by trained naval health professionals.
After the mandatory 14-day quarantine, the deportees would be handed over to the care of state agencies for their further transfer to their home stations. The Navy’s quarantine facility at Kochi with a 200- bed capacity was set up in March and has been serving as a transit quarantine camp for naval personnel returning to Kochi for duty after leave.
The camp is being managed by trained naval doctors and personnel from the Southern Naval Command. The Indian Navy at its three commands has created many such facilities supporting the battle against Covid-19, in addition to undertaking missions like Operation Samudra Setu, wherein about 1,500 Indians have been repatriated from the Maldives.