The Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, assured, this Friday, that the country will suspend restrictions and commercial air links with Mozambique will resume soon, "as soon as repatriation flights are carried out.

In an interview to rtp, the official said that although the pandemic situation requires "additional care", the new variant does not justify the radical measure, taken by several European countries. Omicron "is not a good enough reason to keep flights suspended.

"We will resume commercial flights with Mozambique. We suspended them so that the health authorities would have time to study the new variant and understand whether it would force additional restrictions," explained Santos Silva.

Considering that TAP was running two repatriation flights a week to Mozambique after the suspension, and now only the last two flights are missing, the area connection should be established in the following week.

However, the official said that at this moment they are preparing the order that will allow the commercial air connection between the countries.

The passengers will still undergo two covid-19 tests and be quarantined.

"We will keep these three precautions: requiring a negative test for covid to embark; performing a new test already in Portugal upon landing; and, also, quarantine," he listed, adding that these measures aim to keep the covid-19 situation in Portugal under control.

Portugal had announced on November 26 the suspension of flights to and from Mozambique, a suspension that was expected to last until January 9.

Of the 37 cases of the Omicron variant recorded in Portugal, three were detected on a flight from Mozambique.

On Thursday, Prime Minister António Costa, in the first debate of the Permanent Commission of the Assembly of the Republic after the dissolution of Parliament, considered the suspension of flights to Mozambique "absolutely unacceptable.