By Mark McGoldrick
LAST week it was confirmed that Brazil had become the second country in the world to surpass the 50,000 Covid-19 death toll.
In the midst of it all, a well-known Fermanagh man is fighting the great fight against this global pandemic.
Sean Hoy, a Monea native, is the current Irish ambassador to Brazil and for the past few months, he has been fighting tirelessly to help Irish citizens return home in the wake of this crisis.
“The virus reached us just before our annual St Patrick’s Day programme. We had to cancel everything at the last minute.
“We then moved to an emergency phase working on the safe return of Irish citizens. The international airport remained open and we assisted over 200 people to get to Sao Paulo and onwards to Europe. We did succeed in getting everyone who was willing to get back home safely.”
Brazil has been badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic already, both in terms of Covid cases and the knock-on economic affect, and Ambassador Hoy fears that the worst may be still yet to come as the cases continue to rise.
To read more on this story see this week’s Fermanagh Herald. Can’t get to the shop to collect your copy? No problem! You can download a copy straight to your device by following this link https://bit.ly/3gOl8G0
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