Woman recalls nightmare trip
An exhausted but happy Ameshini Naidoo and her four-year-old daughter, Aveshini Monteiro, are welcomed by Naidoo's mother, Radha Naidoo, left, at King Shaka International Airport after being stranded at Cairo International Airport this week. She spent almost three days at Cairo's main airport before travelling through Athens, Istanbul and Doha en route to South Africa. Photo: Doctor Ngcobo An exhausted but happy Ameshini Naidoo and her four-year-old daughter, Aveshini Monteiro, are welcomed by Naidoo's mother, Radha Naidoo, left, at King Shaka International Airport after being stranded at Cairo International Airport this week. She spent almost three days at Cairo's main airport before travelling through Athens, Istanbul and Doha en route to South Africa. Photo: Doctor Ngcobo
“I am ecstatic to be back. It has been a terrible five days – we have seen too many airports and too many terminals.”
For Ameshini Naidoo and her daughter, it was an emotional end to a “nightmare” five-day journey from Egypt when they arrived at King Shaka International Airport in La Mercy yesterday.
A former Stanger, Durban, resident, 31-year-old Naidoo was one of scores of South Africans stranded at Cairo International Airport this week in the midst of political turmoil as protesters called for an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule in Egypt.
Naidoo, who is five-and-a-half months’ pregnant, was seated in a wheelchair with her four-year-old daughter, Aveshini Monteiro, quietly curled up in her lap when she was tearfully reunited with her parents, Radha and Shan, and sister Anusha.
She was visibly exhausted and battling flu.
Naidoo lives in Lisbon, Portugal, with her husband Jose Monteiro, and was on her way to visit her family in Stanger Manor for the month when her ordeal began on Saturday, and took her through Athens, Istanbul, Doha and Joburg.
“We had stopped over in Cairo when my passport and boarding pass were taken from me, and I was given a meal voucher and told to go upstairs where there were other South Africans waiting,” she said.
Naidoo had no choice but to slept on cardboard on the airport’s freezing cold marble floors, placing Aveshini on top of her to keep her warm.
“There were thousands of people sleeping and walking about the airport. It was filthy and I did not sleep at all because I couldn’t trust anyone and had to keep my child safe. People were fighting and being robbed everywhere.
“I am glad I had my toothbrush and toothpaste on me. The food we were given from planes sitting on the runway was horrible and the food we could buy was expensive. I ended up spending all the money I had with me. It was like a refugee camp.”
Naidoo and 15 other South Africans eventually teamed up, forming a circle around themselves with chairs in the food court to protect them.
Eventually the South African Embassy’s Johnny Demetroudes secured a flight to Istanbul in Turkey for the South Africans, of which there were 70, on Monday night.
She said the trip from Istanbul to Doha and then South Africa on Tuesday night had been much better, with staff on Qatar Airways offering her a wheelchair so she could rest her back and legs.
“My daughter has been traumatised a bit, but it helped that there was a jungle gym at Cairo International Airport… She made a few friends.”
Meanwhile, Deon de Lange reports that the ANC has expressed “deep concern” about continued instability in Egypt and appealed to all role-players to “respect the sanctity of human life and the protection of fundamental freedoms of all citizens”.
ANC international relations chief Ebrahim Ebrahim said on Wednesday that stability on the continent was paramount. - The Mercury