Five thousand Macedonian citizens stranded abroad have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for help to come back home by calling a diplomatic office by March 22.

So far, 4,000 applications have been processed with 2,100 citizens agreeing to return to the country under the mandatory conditions. Transportation will be organized for them, said Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov in interview with TV Telma’s Top Tema show.

Our team, which works in shifts, is calling every one of them, individually, to inform them that they would have to cover some of the costs for the charter flights and that they would have to spend 14 days in state-ordered quarantine, he said.

Our efforts, Dimitrov noted, are focused on getting these people back, especially those in European countries, because they do not have a second home. Majority of Macedonian nationals are stranded in Germany, followed by Malta, according to him.

The charter flights will land at the Skopje airport.

Macedonia, he said, is cooperating with countries that have similar problems trying to repatriate stranded citizens, including Poland, Montenegro and Germany.