Ukrainians hurl stones and clash with police as coronavirus evacuees return home

Residents of a village in Ukraine set fires and clashed with police as more than 70 people evacuated from China amid the coronovirus outbreak arrived in the area for quarantine.

Several hundred locals from the village of Novi Sanzhary blocked the road to the nearby sanitarium where the evacuees were scheduled to arrive on Thursday evening.

Some demonstrators burned tires, attacked police, and smashed a window in one of the buses carrying the evacuees, who peeked through curtains to watch the violence.

AP reported one protester even attempted to ram police lines with their car.

  • Ukrainians clash with riot police guarding evacuees heading for coronavirus quarantine.

Early on Thursday morning the group of 45 Ukrainians and 27 foreign nationals left Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak which has killed 2,100 worldwide and infected at least 75,000 people.

The group landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine later on Thusday, and were escorted under heavy police guard through Novi Sanzhary, where they were delayed for hours by the protests.

Protesters threw stones at buses transporting Ukrainians to quarantine. Credit: AP

Police said 24 protesters were arrested, and nine police officers and one civilian were hospitalised.

"What we saw was shameful," said Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

"It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life."

Police restrain a protester during the clashes. Credit: AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the protests were "not the best side of our character" and reassured residents the evacuees did not pose any danger.

The country's health minister Zoryana Skaletska said she would join the evacuees in quarantine for two weeks to help assuage villagers' concerns around the danger of the virus and urged compassion.

"I was shocked by the panic, rejection, negative feelings and aggression," she said.

But the local municipal council vowed to continue to oppose the evacuation, saying the sanitarium's sewage is linked to the one in the village and would pose a risk to villagers.

"We can't allow putting the health and life of local residents at risk, and demand that top officials take urgent moves to prevent people from China from being put here," they said in a statement.

Some of the evacuees watch the violence from their bus. Credit: AP

Besides the 45 Ukrainians, those evacuated included people from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Ecuador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and other countries.

President Zelenskiy said the people evacuated were healthy and will live in a closed-off medical centre run by the National Guard for two weeks as a precaution.

“In the next two weeks it will probably be the most guarded facility in the country,” he said.