Family desperately trying to get their 75-year-old Uncle who is stuck in Saudi Arabia during coronavirus crisis back home

Mike Hall, along with travelling partner 68-year-old Nicholas Snaith, flew to Saudi Arabia on March 7.

After hearing about the lockdowns beginning in Europe and other areas, they booked earlier flights on March 13 to Athens in an attempt to make it home before any restrictions were imposed.

The flights were then cancelled so they booked a flight from Jeddah to London on March 15.

But after making it to the airport, their flight was cancelled just hours before it was due to take off.

Their original flights home, which were booked for March 24, have also been cancelled but they have managed to book onto flights from Damman back to the UK for March 31 – although Mike fears it may also be scrapped.

Now the pair find themselves trapped in the city of Jazan and say Saudi Arabia has now restricted both internal and international travel – meaning they are stuck more than 800 miles away from the airport they could potentially fly home from.

Mike, who grew up in Hartlepool and now lives in Northumberland, said: “I don't think anyone can get us out of here. We will just have to wait for things to work their way through.

“For a while life was ok. We could travel round waiting for a flight from Dammam to Newcastle on 31 March.“We are in Jazan and have been told that all buses and internal flights have been cancelled for at least two weeks so we can't get to Dammam for our flight.

“Life is not very good. All restaurants and tea shops are closed though 'take away ' food can be bought to take to the hotel. The temperature is 31 degrees.“We have wifi for WhatsApp but it will not support voice communication. The electricity has just gone off so no air-con.”

“There will be hundreds of Brits in Saudi like ourselves who need to get home but can't,” said the retired teacher.

“It needs some rescue flights for Brits only, widely advertised, like China, Spain, Japan.

“At the moment we have no way of leaving the country.

“We have no idea how long the restrictions will last.”

Back in Hartlepool, nephew Stephen Pounder, has been in contact with the British Embassy and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in a bid to get some support for his uncle.

“I’m really close to my uncle and I don’t know what to do to help,” said the 39-year-old. “I woke up to a long message from him asking me to try send his details on to the Embassy and FCO.

“He doesn’t have any friends out there. I don’t know how we can help but there must be someone who can.

“I spent a total of six hours on the phone trying to get some answers.”

The FCO says teams are working urgently to ensure that governments have sensible plans to enable the return of British and other travellers, and, crucially, to keep borders open for a sufficient period of time to enable returns to take place on commercial flights, wherever possible.

An FCO spokesperson said: “We recognise that any British people currently overseas may be nervous about the impact of coronavirus on their travel and their health.

“We are in close contact with travel providers and our international partners to provide support to those British people affected by ongoing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”