Please get us out of here, Kenyans stranded in UAE ask State

More than 400 Kenyans in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have pleaded with the Kenyan government to fly them back home after being rendered destitute by an economic meltdown caused by the global coronavirus crisis.

By Saturday evening, the Kenyans had given their names to a coordinator lobbying to have them flown back home, with the Kenyan embassy in the spotlight for failing to take action despite appeals.

Under the sweltering heat of the Dubai summer, they have lost their jobs, lost the employer-provided accommodation, exhausted the money at their disposal and many can barely afford a ticket back home.

RENT CONTRACT

Among them is Victor Mmayi, who left the country last year to work as a warehouse supervisor at a logistics firm. In April – a month after a lockdown was announced – he lost his job. The lockdown was strict and people could only go out after applying online and had to justify that they were attending to an emergency. The easing of movement began in May.

Mr Mmayi’s rental contract will expire on Monday, and it does not help matters that he has rent arrears. As things stand, he does not even have money to enable him to buy a flight ticket.

“I appeal for help to return to my country,” the 46-year-old told the Sunday Nation in an online interview yesterday.

This week, an audio clip of a man who identifies himself as Brayo has been widely shared online. In it, he complains about the suffering in Dubai.

“Hakuna kazi, hakuna kitu. Tunaishi tunasumbuka huku (There are no jobs, nothing. We are suffering here),” he laments.

Then there is 24-year-old Lucy Wanjiru, who had gone to Abu Dhabi to work as a house help. Even before the fangs of the coronavirus pandemic started biting, she was already out of work. The pandemic only made matters worse.

SHARED ACCOMMODATION

“As at March this year, I was living in shared accommodation, being assisted by fellow Kenyans. But at the moment, my host has lost her job as well and cannot accommodate me anymore,” she said. “I request the government or our leaders facilitate our way back home. It’s unbearable.”

The Sunday Nation has seen the list of Kenyans who are pleading to return home. Many are comfortable with a one-way chartered flight to Nairobi, which shows how desperate they are to leave the UAE.

Ms Peninah Nyokabi, who has been living in Dubai for 12 years, has been making the list. She said yesterday that the most affected are Kenyans who have been working in the hospitality industry.

Being a tourism hub, Dubai and other UAE states receive hordes of tourists each year and recreational facilities have thus needed manpower from other countries. That saw Kenyans hired at popular hotels.

According to Ms Nyokabi, most of them used to earn between Sh50,000 and Sh100,000 a month.

But, with most parts of the UAE having received no visitors since March, the abrupt change meant scaling down of hotel operations, with some closing down altogether.

“I have a Facebook page called Kenya Welfare Association, which I use to reach out to Kenyans in distress. We have had so many incidents and through the page, we have assisted a lot of Kenyans,” Ms Nyokabi said.

She has been coordinating efforts to provide food to needy Kenyans and recently a case of a young man left her worried.

NO FOOD

“I have one young gentleman who wrote to me. He was a waiter and he lost his job three months ago. He wrote to me and said that he doesn’t even have food, transport and that he has been given till end of the month to move from where he is staying,” said Ms Nyokabi.

“When I told him I have food, he told me he doesn’t even have the money to pay for a train or bus to come and pick up the food. So, we’ve organised for some people to go and drop the food to him,” she added.

She noted that Kenyans there who are still employed have been pooling resources to support compatriots in distress.

“We are mobilising each other to offer food. But for how long can we continue giving them food? Accommodation is a big issue; we cannot manage to pay rent for them,” she said.

Also stranded in Dubai is a group of about 30 Kenyans who left last year to attend an exhibition dubbed “Global Village”.  One of them is Collins Otieno Obwar, 24.

Mr Obwar and his friends left Kenya in October 2019. He was working as an artist in the village till its closure on March 13.

SUFFER

“My request to the Kenyan government is that they organise an evacuation flight so we can go back home to our families since we have nothing to do here in Dubai and we’ve really suffered a lot. All we need is to go back home,” he said.

A video of the living conditions of this group has been shared online. It underscores the oven that is Dubai, with Kenyans forced to stay topless to cope with the heat.

Rental costs in that part of the world are exorbitant. Ms Nyokabi said that to get accommodation in a room where up to eight people stay, one needs to pay between Sh14,000 and Sh21,000 a month — exclusive of meals.

They recently heard rumours that the earliest that Kenya Airways can resume flights to where they are is September, which sounds too late for most of those who have exhausted every resource at their disposal, with some required to support families back in Kenya.

“Right now, there are people who are not in their right minds. We have had situations of other nationalities committing suicide because of loss of jobs. So, we do not know what would happen,” said Ms Nyokabi. “We have not heard of Kenyans committing suicide, but we do not know whether this is something we can avoid,” she added.