• Labourers are constructing the 700km border wall.
• County commissioner says all health precautions taken before the labourers were brought in.
Residents of Kiunga village on the Lamu-Somalia border are in a panic following the arrival of over 40 labourers from coronavirus-stricken Kilifi over the weekend.
The labourers are undertaking the construction of the 700km border wall in the area and were ferried to the site by the contractor.
The Kenya-Somalia Border Securitisation Project was launched in 2015 to secure the country from attacks by Somalia-based al Shabaab terrorists.
The project plan includes designated immigration and custom entry points with a concrete wall fitted with CCTV cameras.
The camp was closed for several months after the contractor ran out of building materials but has since been re-opened and work commenced.
Initially, the contractor had erected a camp at Karaweni area between Kiunga and Ishakani near the Lamu-Somalia border.
Since their arrival, the labourers are housed at the Kiunga Primary School due to security concerns.
Residents of Kiunga have, however, demanded immediate evacuation of the labourers from the area over fears that some of them may have been exposed to Covid-19.
Alternatively, the locals are calling for the forceful quarantine of all the labourers and any other person who has come into contact with them.
Area MCA Abdalla Baabad urged the government to postpone construction of the border wall, considering labourers have to be brought in from Kilifi county where cases of coronavirus have been reported.
“How sure we are that all these 40 people from Kilifi haven’t been exposed already to Covid-19, considering they didn’t undergo any screening before they came here?" he said.
"We are worried that if that’s the case, and that’s quite a possibility, there will be an outbreak of that disease here and Lamu in general. We are even disappointed that the government didn’t think of that in the first place.”
Kiunga community leader Aboud Hussein said it was irresponsible for the contractor to bring in people from a county that was affected by disease instead of waiting for the situation to normalise.
“They are risking our lives and we are not going to take it. We want them out of our school. Let them go back to the camp on the border and quarantine themselves there. It is far away from the village. This is so irresponsible,” Hussein said.
County commissioner Irungu Macharia, however, said all measures had been taken before the labourers were brought in.
He said there was no law that restricted any Kenyan citizen from working in any part of the country.
Edited by Henry Makori