Indian expat dies at RAK airport, found to be COVID positive

Our Correspondent
Dubai

A Keralite worker who arrived at the Ras Al Khaimah airport for repatriation collapsed and died on June 30; he was later found to be COVID positive.

Pavithran Manchakkal, 50, was on his way to board a Spice Jet repatriation flight to Kozhikode when he died at the airport. He was going home on the very day his son had bagged an A+ in all subjects in the SSLC examination, the results of which were announced earlier in the day. Pavithran had hoped to surprise his son and also gift him a mobile phone.

Pavithran, who was a goldsmith working with a jewellery shop in Ajman, was without a job for the past three months because of the pandemic-induced closure of the shop. Chethana, an organisation working for the welfare of expatriate workers, had helped him procure a flight ticket. He took a bus from Ajman to the RAK airport. He was shifted to the Khalifa hospital when he collapsed at the airport.

He is survived by his wife and three children.