Thousands of Kosovo nationals living in Switzerland flew to their country of origin after the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health removed Kosovo from the Coronavirus high-risk list.
“On October 2, 3, 4 and 5 we had over twenty thousands (20,063) travelers on arrivals and departures,” the spokesperson of the Prishtina International Airport ‘Adem Jashari’, Valentina Gara told Exit News.
She noted that 12,500 of the travelers and 78 of the 146 flights were from Switzerland.
An Albanian Swiss-based online media, albinfo.ch also reported that Kosovo travel agencies confirmed that hundreds took buses to Kosovo.
The usual time for the Kosovo diaspora to visit their relatives is during summer holidays and the end of the year.
They have a big impact on the country’s economy with an average of €1.5 billion in remittances sent to Kosovo annually.
Lirim Krasniqi from “Germin” NGO told Free Europe Radio in May that according to the Central Bank, Kosovo had around two billion income from its diaspora in the last year.
“The financial remittances are also included here, as well as expenses incurred by those coming to Kosovo, and all this amounts to about 22 to 25 percent of Kosovo’s GDP,” Krasniqi said.
However, the pandemic has affected the situation, although a report on the matter has yet to be conducted.
