Stranded Colombians plead for COVID-19 airlift out of Brazil

SAO PAULO (AP) — Surrounded by boxes, a pile of rice packages and mattresses, José Ávila Saavedra sat on the floor with a thousand-yard stare Wednesday. For two weeks he has lived inside Sao Paulo's international airport, his life one interminable layover.

Saavedra and more than 200 other Colombians are camping out in the airport in hopes that their plight will prod Colombian authorities in Brazil to charter a humanitarian flight home, or pay for their flights on commercial airlines. Anything to get them back to Colombia, and far from Latin America's coronavirus hot spot.

"We don't have money or anything to do in Brazil. We want to ask Colombia's president to please help us. We're only eating thanks to donations,” Saavedra said.

Saavedra had sold clothes in Sao Paulo, earning enough to support his wife, nephew and 2-year-old daughter. Then, Sao Paulo state officials ordered a halt to nonessential commerce as part of a lockdown to control the spread of the virus, and he lost his means to obtain and sell merchandise.

Most of the stranded Colombians lay asleep near the airport's check-in area Wednesday, a few of them on mattresses and others atop cloth sheets or flattened cardboard boxes. Some stretched out on the bare floor.

Those who were awake said they don't have the roughly $400 for a flight to Colombia, after having lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Retail jobs and restaurant work disappeared, they said.

Between March and April, Brazil’s economy shed more than a million jobs from the formal sector, according to government data published Wednesday. Informal job losses in the two months have yet to be reported by the national statistics agency, but are expected to be similarly disastrous.

“What money we had, we used to pay rent,” Saavedra said. "Now...