'We feel forgotten': Call for more flights as Black Country families stranded in India lose hope
Thousands of people from the Black Country remain stranded in northern India after it emerged only four repatriation flights had left the region for Britain.
The Foreign Office believes around 15,000 British Sikhs have been stuck in the Punjab since India entered a strict coronavirus lockdown on March 25.
Around 5,000 Brits have been brought home from India through a repatriation scheme, but just four flights have come from cities in the Punjab.
Satvinder Sandilands, a doctor in Walsall, said her parents – Bawa Singh Mander, aged 84 and Sampuran Kaur, 81 – had been unable to leave Jalandhar, having initially visited the Punjab city for a holiday in February.
She said that neither of them have been able to access medication while in India.
She said despite regularly contacting the Foreign Office (FCO), writing to MPs and ministers, and having registered for flights, they still have no idea when her parents can return home.
Dr Sandilands said: "My parents are elderly and frail and have health problems. They are on the list of priorities, but they have been on that list from the very beginning and it has made no difference.
"The FCO says there are 15,000 British Sikhs stuck in the north of the Punjab but there have only been four repatriation flights.
"As a family we are worried sick and just want to get them home as soon as possible. We feel like with everything that is going on we've been forgotten."
The Punjab is a popular travel destination for people from the West Midlands due to family connections. It is believed that more than 2,000 people from the Black Country are stranded there.
Flights left the Punjab for Britain on April 14, 16, 18 and 19. British Airways are due to operate further flights this weekend, having expanded its operation to include the Punjab city of Amritsar.
The Government insists it is doing all it can to repatriate Brits through charter flights.
But MPs have said the process is taking too long. John Spellar, the Labour MP for Warley, has questioned why the full capabilities of Britain's military were not being used to bring people home.
He told the Defence Select Committee that the UK was "behind the curve" in comparison to other countries.
"It does seem as though the Foreign Office requirements were very much just to engage with the airlines on their scheduled routes, with a few trips to one or two places, but nothing like the effort that most of our other allies have been performing in getting their people back home," he added.
