While he was waiting, like hundreds of Rodrigues stranded in Mauritius since March, to be repatriated to Rodrigues, a Frenchman, living in Rodrigues and married to a Rodriguan lady, has not been able to leave Mauritius since the second confinement. He was due to return to Rodrigues on 17 March but the lockdown has upset his plans. The Mauritian airline company had informed him that his return flight had initially been postponed to 28 March. But with the spread of the virus in Mauritius, his flight was postponed again. But no other precise date has been communicated to him.
The man is having difficulty getting explanations from his airline and the authorities. After 5 months of difficulties, the Frenchman finally got a ticket for October 3rd when domestic flights resume.
Brice finds himself in a delicate situation, especially as he knows no one in Mauritius. Although he managed to find accommodation in hostels, last June he was attacked. The thugs took his backpack containing all his belongings, but above all his papers and the little money he had left.
But it was a real descent into hell that Brice experienced during these long months of waiting and confinement. After losing his job as a computer specialist in Reunion Island, Brice decided to move to Rodrigues with his family, as his wife was originally from the Cinderella of the Mascarene Islands. His idea was to go into tourism and build an accommodation for “European tourism”, he confided.
Hospitalised, Brice has been living in a social shelter in Saint-Jean since last July. He is trying to find work to support himself before his return flight. “There are more than a hundred of us stuck here, and we are still asking what the criteria are for boarding a flight,” says the Frenchman.
