The 240 or so Moldovans trapped in France after their coaches were driven back to the border with Germany were able to hit the road on Monday April 27 in the direction of their country, the Embassy of Moldova announced.
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The three coaches that transport them will ultimately be able to reach Moldova via Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania, and not via the Czech Republic as initially planned, the embassy said. .
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The Bas-Rhin prefecture confirmed at the start of the afternoon that all the members of the group had been able to cross the German border. This group of men, women and eight children, according to the embassy, had left Paris Saturday morning to try to return to Moldova by bus but had failed on a highway area in Alsace after Germany and the Czech Republic denied them passage due to the coronavirus epidemic.
Two more days of travel
On the Franco-German border, they had been turned back by the German authorities because the Czech Republic had refused to let them enter the country after crossing German territory, the prefecture said on Sunday. Divided into three buses chartered by a Moldavian tour operator, these people, mainly seasonal workers, had therefore been stranded on a rest area of the A4 motorway with a service station, at Brumath, about twenty kilometers north of Strasbourg.
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"They've already spent two nights on the bus and hopefully they have two more days of travel, two more nights on the bus, about 26 hours of driving time without breaks," said Rica Balica, an Alsatian of Moldovan origin who mobilized compatriots to supply them.
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