Close to 80,000 expatriate workers have left Oman over the past four months, according to data released by the sultanate's National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

The expatriates had chosen to leave Oman due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic through the repatriation efforts initiated by their respective countries. There has been a steady decrease of about 79,000 expatriates in the country between March and June 2020, the NCSI said.

Oman, a country of 4.7 million people, has recorded more than 81,000 coronavirus infections and 509 deaths as of August 08, 2020.

At the end of March 2020, Oman had 1,936,830 expats living and working in the country, compared to 1,920,157 foreign nationals at the end of April, the statistics centre said. While 25,000 expats left the country between April and May, another 37,500 left between May and June, NCSI noted.

Countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines have organised repatriation flights for their citizens in Oman, while airlines operating in the country have organised flights at regular intervals to fly passengers to countries in Europe, Africa and South East Asia. The decline in expat numbers corresponds to the number of repatriation, chartered and special flights set up to take foreign nationals home from Oman.

(Writing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@refinitiv.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)

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