Get back in the next 48 hours, UK tourists told

BRITISH tourists should get home within 48 hours ‘while you still can’ or face being stranded overseas, the Foreign Secretary said yesterday.

Dominic Raab warned the Government will not be able to guarantee there will be flights to get citizens home after that.

In an urgent plea to holidaymakers, Mr Raab said: ‘We are strongly urging UK travellers overseas to return home now where there are still commercial routes to do so.

‘Where commercial routes don’t exist, our staff are working round the clock to give advice and support to UK nationals. If you are on holiday abroad the time to come home is now while you still can.’

Britain will not close its borders but the FCO is concerned many other countries are suspending all flights which could stop UK citizens getting home. It believes air routes could become closed within the next 48 hours, ‘possibly without notice’.

Ministers said they were working with airlines to keep routes open for a sufficient period to get Britons home. But last night there were fears many will not make it back in time, with one holidaymaker saying it was already ‘physically impossible’ to return within the next two days.

Tourists face being stuck in far-flung countries for weeks after numerous governments imposed military curfews and travel bans.

Some holidaymakers are running dangerously low on vital medicine, while others fall into the coronavirus ‘at risk’ group because of their age or health conditions.

Tourists in New Zealand could be stranded for a month because the entire country will be ordered to stay indoors from tomorrow. They have tried to return to Britain on flights via Singapore, but have been turned back because the island has closed its borders.

In Peru, British tourists say they feel abandoned by the Foreign Office after they were ordered to stay in a hotel with hundreds of other guests.

Some have serious health problems and others are running out of money.

Olivia Weedall, from London, is in Bali with her boyfriend on a gap year. The 23-year-old said: ‘It is physically impossible to get home in 48 hours.

There are no flights and those that are available cost far too much money.

‘We have nothing left and have just been informed from one of the airlines that it is going to take up to 90 days to issue a refund. There are parents with young children stuck here and elderly people being turned away at the airport. It’s heart-breaking.’

A British family who raised £245,000 to get vital cancer treatment in America for their six-year-old daughter have been placed on lockdown in New York. Craig and Lois Jackson were due to return to their home in Waltham Abbey,

Essex, next week with their daughter Edie.

But they are facing an extended stay after their flight home was cancelled. They fear that Edie could die if she catches coronavirus. Reports have emerged of British holidaymakers being stranded on every continent, aside from the Arctic and Antarctica.

Tourists have accused the Foreign Office, British embassies, travel companies and airlines of doing too little to bring them home.

Those in South America and Central America appear to be among the worst affected.

Peru’s borders are closed and currently no flights are allowed to enter or leave the country without government permission.

Simon Taylor, 38, from Hull, has been unable to leave the country for six days because of the lockdown.

‘The whole thing has been a rollercoaster,’ he said. ‘I have been happy to see other citizens get repatriated and dismayed by the lack of support from the British Government and the closure of the embassy when we needed them the most.’