Ahmet worked as a carpenter for 20 years in Genoa, Italy. When the pandemic hit the country, he did not expect that it would unfold at this scale. Beside the risk of loosing his job with elderly Italian siblings, he realized the risk of not being able to return to his village in Turkey where his family -wife, two sons, and old parents- live.
Alarmed by Italy’s decision to stop international flights, he traveled to Nice, the closest French city by bus to take the earliest possible flight to Turkey. When he arrived to his village, he was less welcomed than in normal vacation times due to the suspicion of being a ‘carrier of virus’ from Europe. Attitudes got normalized after his 14 days of self-quarantine. Now, on the one hand, he does not know whether he would be able to work again in Italy or in Turkey, and on the other, he feels lucky when watching the news about the overwhelmed public health system and high death tolls in Italy.
Ahmet’s COVID-19 story is not unique, the pandemic urged many migrants across the globe to return to their home countries, although many of them were also stranded or wait for governments to fly them home. India, as the country with the highest number of international migrants in the world, experienced the return of more than sixty thousand migrant workers until 22 March when it restricted all international travel. Moreover, more than three million Indian internal migrants returned from major cities to their home states as they lost daily earnings. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians working abroad rushed to return home due to business closures and economic slowdown. Hundreds of Venezuelans in Columbia returned from exile because they were losing their financial lifeline. Thousands of jobless migrant workers in Thailand traveled back to Myanmar, Cambodia and the Lao from official and unofficial crossing points. Over 14,000 Mozambican migrants working in the mining sector returned from South Africa within a few days, as South Africa declared lockdown. The countries of returnees had to ask the International Organization of Migration (IOM) for support at the crossing points with data collection and in helping national authorities to meet needs in shelter, food, non-food relief items, health support and risk communication.
