Dream World cruise ship near Bintan, Indonesian Government plans to evacuate its citizens

Secretary of the Directorate General of Disease Prevention and Control of the Health Ministry Dr. Achmad Yurianto said the Indonesian government plans to use a naval ship to pick up its citizens, as crew members, suspected of contracting coronavirus (Covid-19) aboard Dream World cruise liner. Technically, the Indonesian Navy ship will meet Dream World cruise liner in the international waters near Bintan Island, he said in Jakarta, on Friday.

The Indonesian citizens will be transferred from the cruise liner to the naval ship on a lifeboat.

As reported previously, the Malaysian-flagged cruise liner dropped all its passengers in Hong Kong. Then the cruise liner sailed only with 1,104 crew members on board.

“Some 270 of the crew members are Indonesian citizens,” Achmad said.

Once all passengers left the cruise liner, the Hong Kong authorities checked all crew members to have test for coronavirus. They were checked using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and all of them tested negative.

However, a few days after the passengers left the cruise liner, one of them was found testing positive for the coronavirus.

“When the check was underway the cruise liner had sailed to Malaysia without any passenger,” he said.

Because of that, all country refused the cruise liner to dock. The cruise liner last asked for a permit to the Indonesian government to dock near Bintan Island, but their request was turned down.

“The ship is now in the international waters near Bintan,” Achmad noted.