Anxious foreigners await rescue from China virus epicenter

Anxious foreigners await rescue from China virus epicenter

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Excerpt

“In the past week we’ve not been able to go out and buy anything to eat,” said Mashal Jamalzai, a political science student from Afghanistan at Central China Normal University.

He said that he and his classmates had been living on biscuits, and his embassy had not responded to requests for help.

“We want to be evacuated as soon as possible, because either the virus, the hunger or the fear will kill us,” Jamalzai said.

Thousands of foreign students and other international residents live in Wuhan, a normally bustling transport hub in central China home to a huge steel and auto industry.

But with schools, hospitals and public offices shut and no transport to and from the city, Hubei University student Siti Mawaddah says the city now “looks like a ghost town.”

“The situation in Wuhan right now is very intense and worrying,” the 25-year-old Indonesian said, adding that the situation had taken a psychological toll on her and her classmates.