Valentina Bitra Bueno has been holed up in her bedroom since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scared and depressed, the 17-year-old international student says she misses her parents back home.

With no prospects of a summer job or of getting any government aid, Santiago Nicolas Gil, 20, a foreign student at Seneca College, can’t afford to stay in Toronto anymore.

Margarita Espinel flew to Canada last November to help care for her daughter’s newborn baby. Speaking no English, the 69-year-old fears she would pick up the coronavirus and get trapped in an ICU bed without her family.

With their country in lockdown in the wake of the pandemic, these Colombian nationals find themselves abandoned in Canada.

“We have a WhatsApp group of 200-plus Colombians stuck in Canada, many of them students and a few visitors. Some have return tickets for May but the flights are cancelled. Others have their visas expiring, their accommodation (arrangements) expiring,” said Oscar Vigil, executive director of the Hispanic Canadian Heritage Council in Toronto.

“A few are having financial problems and are using loans and food banks. All they want is to be home with their families.”

With Ottawa set to send in a humanitarian flight to bring home Canadians in Bogota on Tuesday (4/28), Colombians stuck here are pleading with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Ivan Duque to allow a swap so both their stranded citizens can return home.

“I feel so lonely and have a lot of mental stress,” said Bueno, who came in January to study English in Toronto but has been forced to take her courses online in her bedroom since March 13 when the province closed down all schools.

Valentina Bitar Bueno, 17, came to study English in Toronto and has been secluded in home stay taking her courses online since March 13.

“We don’t know how long this could keep going. It is hard to be in a different language and a different culture at a time like this. I just want to be in my home country with my parents.”

Gil, who is halfway through a three-year international business program at Seneca, hasn’t been able to find a summer job in a grim labour market and is not sure how long his money will last him in Toronto. His two roommates, both international students, have just moved back to Belgium.

“A humanitarian flight is the only way for us to return home. We have contacted our embassy by phone and email but we haven’t got an answer,” said Gil, whose mother is currently being treated for cancer.

Santiago Nicolas Gil, 20, who is enrolled in Seneca College, hasn't been able to find a summer job and doubts info he can afford to stay here.

“I understand they are trying to make sure everyone is safe but people outside of Colombia miss their families and want to come home. I don’t mind to quarantine myself if they let me go home. I just want to be close to my family.”

Espinel has not stepped out of her daughter’s house in Laval for two months and her private health insurance has limited coverage.

“My mother has full health coverage in Colombia. It would be easier for her to be able to speak in her own language,” said Espinel’s daughter Ana Maria Gonzalez, who has two sons, Thomas, 3, and Mathias, almost four months.

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“If anything happens to her here and the hospital doesn’t allow us to stay with her, she wouldn’t be able to stand up for herself alone.”

The federal government said it’s looking at ways to help those stranded.

“As our embassies continue to work to repatriate Canadians from around the world, we are conscious that other citizens may be stranded in Canada,” said Sylvain Leclerc, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada.

“We are looking at a range of options to assist the Colombian government in returning their citizens from Canada to Colombia in a timely and efficient manner, in accordance with COVID-19 restrictions that are in place.”

Since Colombia closed its border, Canada has sent in just one humanitarian flight to Bogota but many Canadians are still stuck in other parts of the country and can’t travel to the capital city.

Toronto community development worker Eduardo Garay, whose 87-year-old mother is currently stuck in Medellin with his brother, said Canada and Colombia have bilateral trade agreement and have the obligation to help each other’s citizens return home.

Canadians Rosa Munoz, 87, son Mario Garay and his wife Carmen Garay travelled to Colombia in February and are now stuck in Medellin, which is 10 hours by bus from Bogota, the capital, where humanitarian flights are allowed. Family photo

“The airport in Medellin is closed and it’s 10 hours drive up and down the mountains by bus. That’s too hard for my mother,” said Garay, whose parent arrived her home town February and was scheduled to fly back March 18.

However, Marcel Lebleu, Canadian ambassador in Bogota, said it is up to the Colombian government to let their citizens into their homeland.

“The Canadian government does not impose restriction of movement to Colombian citizens that want to leave Canada. However, the Colombian government has banned international flights to Colombia, except for humanitarian flights that need to arrive empty in Bogota,” Lebleu said in a letter in response to the Colombians’ plea for help.

“Should the Colombian government change its policy to accept the return of Colombians on a humanitarian flight sponsored by the Canadian government, it simply needs to inform us. I am certain that such a request would receive a positive answer.”

Monica Beltran-Espitia, chargée d´affaires of the Colombian Embassy in Ottawa, said a decree was issued March 20 in response to the pandemic to suspend all flights from abroad until the end of the state of national emergency.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has prioritized efforts to provide assistance to Colombian nationals who were temporarily abroad and were unable to enter Colombian territory,” Beltran-Espitia told the Star in an email.

“The opening of flights is being done under direct instructions from the President’s Office, in a gradual fashion ... The Embassy and the corresponding Consulates will carry out the respective coordination, where appropriate.”