More than 500 of the 2,300 cases of Covid-19 students are students in Malta to learn English, while the first 58 Italian students have been repatriated, describing their return home as the end of a nightmare.

Italian news agency Ansa reports that some of the students who tested negative but were in touch with positive cases have started to be repatriated on special flights. The students were returned to Italy, France, Germany and Spain.

English language schools have been closed since last week as the number of cases of students infected with Covid-19 increased.

Ansa reports that 157 of the 500 students are Italian, but 58 of them were already repatriated on Wednesday.

"I would have liked to improve by English, but we spent our time locked in a hotel. The only way to pass the time was using the mobile phone," one student told Ansa.

See Ansa report (in Italian) here