LONDON/GOA: Thousands of foreign tourists are stranded across India amidst the lockdown, with many saying they cannot access food or medicine, are short of money, and desperate to return home.

They came on holidays that turned into nightmares after their return flights were suddenly cancelled. Several hundred Europeans in Goa are now desperately trying to privately charter a plane to fly them home.

Maxine Rainback, a British tourist stranded in Calangute, told TOI: “I urgently need medicines. We are frightened to go out. We keep trying the delivery services... they hang up or say they have no stock or no transport.” She said no one from the British government was helping her, yet she had received a letter in the UK saying she must self-isolate.

British actor Sammy Heaney, 23, moved to Mumbai to act in Bollywood movies. Now he has no income. “I was thrown out of my paying guest accommodation in Versova as they did not want foreigners. An Indian family has taken me into their flat. I have to stay inside all day and they give me food and water. Even my neighbours should not know I’m here… they may call the police and ask for me to get checked. It’s scary to go shopping. People point at you and say ‘there is a foreigner’. They think I have got the virus. Everyone used to be so welcoming.”

Jan Thompson, acting British High Commissioner to India, said she had received thousands of emails from stranded Britons and “was working on a plan to get them home”. An online petition to compel the UK government to organise repatriation flights for those stuck in India has received support from 33,000 people.

At 3am on Sunday, a relief flight took 29 passengers back home to the Czech Republic from Goa International Airport .

Ben Franklin, 42, a travel agent from Colchester is currently “imprisoned” in a yoga and meditation retreat in Kerala with his friend Pauline. He said: “Even if the British government puts us on a flight from Delhi how will it help us?” Franklin is running short of life-saving medication.

Swedish tourist Hugo Lindow, 23, set up a Facebook group to help the 400 plus stranded Europeans in Goa. He is looking to privately charter a plane for €128,000 (Rs 1 crore) to fly them all to Copenhagen. “Many Europeans in Goa are scared things are going to get even worse,” Lindow said.

It is Johnna Pierzynski’s first time in India. Aged 21, the American student from Missouri arrived on February 27 as a backpacker to see Rajasthan. She is now stuck in Jaipur after her March 15 flight home was cancelled. “I went to the US Embassy but they would not let me in or talk to me because they were scared of the virus and told me to go on their website. I did and it is not useful. I am afraid to go outside even for food. A foreigner was detained just for walking on the streets.”

The US Embassy in India said in a statement that it was trying to facilitate flights to India to pick up Americans from New Delhi and Mumbai this week.

On Sunday, AC Milan goalkeeper Asmir Begovic sent out a public plea on Twitter, seeking help for a 67-year-old British national stuck in Goa. The woman, a mother of his close friend and agent, has been struggling to get her hands on even food and water, he said.

Anand Manish, 41, a British OCI card holder from Norfolk, is also stuck in Goa. He was due to fly back on April 15th but his flight was cancelled. “They gave us one day’s notice of the three week lockdown which gave us no time to prepare,” he said.

(With inputs from Newton Sequeira in Goa)

