Flight 8G882, flying back from east China's Xiamen, landed in Timor-Leste's capital Dili at 07:00 local time on Saturday, finishing the first round trip on the first direct passenger flight route between China and Timor-Leste.
The Passenger route between the eastern Chinese city of Xiamen and Dili is operated by Dili Air, with two round-trip flights per month during the trial operation period from February to April this year.
The new route, with a one-way flight duration of about 5.5 hours, has been welcomed by Chinese travelers, who previously faced lengthy layovers in Indonesia or Singapore, which usually took 10 hours or more.
"When I was here last time, I felt the scenes here are so beautiful as if it was completely unexplored. So I'm coming here again as soon as they opened the first flight," said Chen Jianfeng, a Chinese tourist.
"This flight from Xiamen to Dili by Dili Air is also the first direct flight (between China and Timor-Leste). We are lucky that Dili Air provided us with Chinese translation, and we felt very sweet and very warm," said Zhang Manyi, a Chinese tourist.
Starting May, there will be a weekly round-trip flight connecting the two destinations.
Experts believe the opening of this direct passenger air route will boost economic and trade exchanges, as well as tourism ties, between the two countries.
Timor-Leste, which offers visa-on-arrival for Chinese passport holders, has seen a growing number of Chinese visitors coming to visit the country. According to Timor-Leste’s National Statistics Office, the number of Chinese arrivals in the first half of 2024 increased by 18.4 percent year-on-year.
"The sea in Timor-Leste is very beautiful. It is all blue and you get to see fish swimming around however deep the water is. I hope friends in China can come and see it more often," said Francisco Kalbuadi Lay, the country's vice-prime minister, minister coordinator for economic affairs and minister of tourism and environment.
"We have a lot of potential areas, like agricultural sector, mining, tourism, construction, and trade as well, and also industrial sectors. Chinese investors can also look this as a good opportunity or so," said Filipus Nino Pereira, minister of trade and industry.
First batch of passengers aboard China-Timor-Leste direct flight arrives in Dili
Axis powers during World War II should offer sincere reflection and apology, a Greek mayor said after Greece successfully repatriated a rare collection of 262 World War II-era photographs.
Greek officials traveled to Belgium to negotiate with the seller and brought the photographs back to Greece, after they were put up for sale online by a Belgian collector, said the Greek Culture Ministry.
The images were taken by Wehrmacht lieutenant Hermann Heuer, who served in Greece from 1943 to 1944, during World War II, and part of the collection documents the mass execution of Greek communists by Nazi troops in Kaisariani, east of Athens.
During World War II, German occupation in Greece met with fierce resistance. On May 1, 1944, German forces executed 200 Greeks at the Kaisariani firing range in retaliation for the killing of a German general by resistance fighters.
A memorial and a museum were set up after the war in Kaisariani to commemorate those who died in the mass execution.
"The photos really shocked us all because they were real documents from the day of the execution. We are shocked for many reasons. An important reason is that the 200 communists were singing with their heads held high before the execution in the photos, and they were not mourning because they were fighters," said Ilias Stamelos, mayor of Kaisariani.
The newly recovered photographs have drawn renewed attention to the historical trauma still felt in the community, as the images provide a direct visual record of the final moments of those executed.
In 1987, then German President Richard von Weizsaecker visited Greece and made a special stop in Kaisariani, reflecting on the profound suffering inflicted on the Greek people by Germany during World War II.
Ilias said that, like Germany, Japan, another Axis power during the war, should also be held accountable for the massive harm it caused to multiple countries and should offer sincere reflection and apology for its wartime aggression.
"And I think it's a common demand, because those responsible for the deaths in the World War II need to pay for what happened. It's known to all that back then it was Germany, Japan and Italy, the allies in this war, that each played different roles in the war, yet they do have common responsibilities," said the mayor.
Historic photos of Nazi mass execution of Greeks returned to Greece, mayor calls for historical accountability
