The Russian embassy in Tunisia announced that it had reached an agreement with the Tunisian authorities allowing a Russian-Belarusian crew, stuck for several days at Djerba-Zarzis airport, to leave the country “in the near future”, reports RT.
According to the embassy, the crew is made up of seven Russian nationals and two Belarusian nationals. It specifies that its members are neither detained nor deprived of their liberty, but that they are currently in the international transit zone of the airport, without the possibility of leaving the site at this stage.
The diplomatic mission explains that the presence of the crew in Tunisia was part of a temporary transit to Algeria. Those interested can leave Tunisia on commercial flights, without the presence of the helicopter, which would remain parked at Djerba-Zarzis airport. However, departure on board the aircraft remains conditional on obtaining entry authorization from the Algerian authorities, which has not yet been issued.
The Russian embassy also affirmed that the Tunisian authorities were not behind the blockage and did not impose any obstacle to the crew’s exit. During official discussions with the Tunisian authorities, it was confirmed that departure is possible as soon as the necessary logistical and administrative arrangements are in place.
Scheduled technical landing
For his part, one of the crew members, pilot Sergei Souslov, had previously declared that the crew had been stranded at Zarzis airport since December 19, following a planned technical landing. He told the RIA Novosti agency that the flight, carried out aboard a Mi-26 helicopter, was duly authorized and that all the documents were in order.
According to his testimony, the crew members had passed passport control before their documents were temporarily held, forcing them to spend the first night in the arrival lounge, then in a separate room afterwards.
The helicopter, belonging to a Kyrgyz company, was on a flight to Algeria after maintenance work, Tunisia was intended to be a simple one-night technical stopover. According to the Russian embassy, it was officially contacted on December 20 by the company that owns the device, which requested its intervention in order to facilitate a resolution of the situation.
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