Yemeni national stranded at airport over yellow fever card

A Yemen national is stranded at Kigali International Airport after a Rwandair flight left him due to lack of a yellow fever vaccination card

Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Yemen national is stranded at Kigali International Airport after a Rwandair flight left him due to lack of a yellow fever vaccination card.The man identified as Adel Abdullah Saleh Alhaimi, who was a board a South Africa bound plane from Dubai, said he arrived at Kigali International airport at 9 am on Thursday but could not continue with his journey without the card.Alhaimi said he spent the night at the airport because, the Civil Aviation Authorities asked him to first get a national visa card to enable him go for immunisation."I lost my luggage which had my money at the airport and I had to spend a night here in the corridors,” Alhaimi lamented, adding that he already had an air ticket to South Africa that cost him about US Dollars 800. "The authorities here have arranged to get me a visa card but I don’t know when I will get it,” he said.When contacted, the Airport Operations manager, Alex Mugume, acknowledged Alhaimi’s problem, saying the Yemeni had no proper documents and that the airport was doing everything possible to facilitate him to continue with his travel"If RwandAir allowed him continue with his flight without the yellow fever immunisation card, the South African authorities would have fined us $80,000. But we are making sure he goes tomorrow (today),” said Mugume.On the Alhaimi’s missing luggage, Mugume said the luggage was not tagged with RwandAir lines."It could have remained in Dubai because it (luggage) was tagged to Gulf airlines from Yemen,” he said.