As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, the government has said that it has budgeted KShs. 100mn and planned logistics through the Kenyan Embassy in Kuwait to get citizens out of Lebanon.
In a meeting with the Senate, Prime CS Musalia Mudavadi said that: “I want to state that we have about 26, 000 Kenyans over there and evacuating them is a very massive undertaking.”
“There is a committee in the Foreign Affairs ministry that is working with the security and other agencies to see how this Kshs. 100mn can be utilised,” he added.
Israel is currently contemplating a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon. For a long time, the top brass of the Israeli security forces have pressured the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to assent to this move.
Many Kenyans working in Lebanon are domestic workers. Some of them have voiced their apprehension in social networks including X (formerly Twitter) and Whatsapp. They have confirmed that the situation is becoming worse, requesting the Kenyan government to evacuate them if need arises.
The Kenyan government has advocated for emigration as a policy to solving unemployment. In October last year, 1,500 Kenyans were allocated to jobs in Lebanon as part of a deal between various agencies and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI).
These migrant jobs have been criticized for exposing Kenyans to unmitigated abuse and exploitation. Severally, the government has been called upon to rescue migrant workers languishing in misery with no means to escape. In August 2020, for example, 30 migrant domestic workers and 3 children staged a sit in outside the Kenyan Honorary Consulate in Beirut to protest against abusive working conditions. About four Kenyan women working in the country had gone missing in the four years prior.