Aeroflot, the airline that canceled Thurber's flight, told BuzzFeed in a statement the airline has ”every sympathy” for stranded passengers trying to get home. “All decisions about flights into and out of Russia are now being taken at inter-governmental level,” the airline said. “Passengers who held tickets for cancelled flights will be given a full refund or the opportunity to rebook on a future flight. We urge passengers to contact their local embassy in the first instance."

For Thurber, it was dangerous to just wait and hope. He is running out of the asthma medication that helps him breathe, Buzzfeed reported. His family is pleading for help on Facebook, and the U.S. Embassy is not helping. “It’s more confusing than helpful when you speak to the US embassy here,” he told BuzzFeed. “The lack of a hard ‘don’t do this’ or the fact that the information I’ve gotten from them has all kind of been not true — or at least not fully true — it’s kind of compounding the situation.” At one point, the U.S. Embassy told him to get an international flight to any European capital. “They don’t understand the situation. I don’t think,” he said in video BuzzFeed obtained. “They do now, but at first they definitely didn’t.”

x Thurber said the US embassy in Moscow and State Dept have even given him info that has "been not true Ã¢ÂÂ or at least not fully true." Here's a video he sent me in which he says @USEmbRu "don't understand the situation." The guy just wants to get home to Tuscon, Arizona. pic.twitter.com/AqbO9XBsf9 — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 1, 2020

Samantha Behlog, an American volunteer stuck in Honduras, told PBS that when the pandemic hit, soldiers in masks blocked people from entering the city and the streets cleared. "There was no warning,” she told the broadcasting service. “There wasn't any kind of grace period for which people could really get out on time." The U.S. Embassy told her to contact the airlines, and without the government's help, she was able to leave Honduras after spending $3,000 on four tickets, PBS reported.

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Ian Brownlee, of the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, told media representatives Friday that it has brought home more than 15,000 U.S. citizens and is monitoring at least 64 flights for the next week. "We have identified 9,000 passengers – about 9,000 passengers – to go on those flights, though there’s space for more,” Brownlee said. “So we need to continue to get the word out that these flights are available." But in the very next breath, he insinuated many Americans would be left to fend for themselves. “I want to emphasize again for your audiences how important it is that U.S. citizens abroad, while they still have commercial opportunities, if they’re not prepared to hunker down where they are now, act now to get home,” he said. “Avail yourself of those commercial opportunities while they still exist.”