South African journalists say they might not be able to join President Cyril Ramaphosa in St Petersburg this morning, where he is expected to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Polish authorities have confiscated their luggage.
Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the plane carrying around 120 South Africans including journalists, police and military security for Ramaphosa had what it calls “dangerous goods” on board.
The journalists, police officers and soldiers have finally disembarked from their plane at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport in Poland after their 26-hour ordeal where they were prohibited from disembarking.
SABC News reporter Ntebo Mokobo is currently in Warsaw in Poland, “The authorities in Poland told us that we’ve got dangerous weapons in our flight and those weapons are not allowed to be offloaded in their country and that was the predicament we found ourselves in. On Friday when we got to our hotels our luggage was detained. We were told that they are part of that consignment, and they couldn’t release, and we had to fend for ourselves. We’ve lost the Ukrainian leg and it seems we will also lose the Russian leg. Ultimately, we think it will be really difficult for us to proceed with the trip to Russia.”
Source: SABC News
