400 Chinese nationals are preparing to leave the country in the coming week over the fear of contracting Covid-19.
The Chinese obtained a court directing the Kenyan Government to allow them to leave the country on June 16. They argued that Kenya luck a health system capacity to handle the deadly virus if the pandemic spreads rapidly in the.
Nairobi High Court Judge, Justice Weldon Korir gave the order after the Chinese sought special permission to allow evacuation flights to take them back to their country.
Mr. Okinyo, the Chinese lawyer said he filed the request for his client evacuation on Tuesday last week at Kibera Law Court before Justice Korir.
“We went to court last week and argued why China citizens needed to be evacuated since they are considered vulnerable and would wish to go back home. I don’t think there is anything to stop them. We were given the go-ahead to process their evacuation,” Mr. Okinyo told Daily Nation.
Through their lawyer, the Chinese said everything is in place and they are only waiting for approval to travel from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to Chinese, they have underlying conditions while others just don’t feel safe here, All the isolation centers are full, testing, and contact tracing is a big deal to the Kenya government. Let them just leave as they wish,” the Chinese lawyers told the Dialy Nation.
The Chinese nationals who are mostly living in Nairobi are expected to be led by the Chinese ambassador to Kenya Wu Peng, who has been recalled to Beijing on a “promotion”.
Since the Chinese are foreigners with a government-to-government agreement, Okinyo wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the Chinese embassy requested that they were cleared to leave the county on Tuesday.
According to foreign international law, foreigners should notify their government officials to process their foreign exit before they are permitted to evacuate.
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The Chinese who are in the country have expressed their fear of being stereotyped and stigmatized by Kenyans as they are mostly being associated with coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan China on December 31, 2019, where several cases of unusual pneumonia were reported.
The virus began as an epidemic in China but has spread in over 200 countries over the world and has become a global pandemic infecting more than seven million people and killing at least 406,000 people.
“The other day, I went to a supermarket and people were running away from me. In most hospitals, even if you are just going for a normal check-up, they insist that all Chinese residents be tested for Covid-19,” a Chinese woman told the local publication.
The woman said she will leave with her family and she is not sure whether she will come back. To her, only time will tell whether she will be back.
