A Mombasa woman has asked the government to allow her husband and six others to enter Kenya from Somalia.
Purity Moraa's husband Ignas Kialu and the six had gone to Somalia for a welding job in January.
They were denied entry on return on April 6 because of the international travel ban to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Moraa, a teacher at a private school, says that the seven are suffering in Ras Kamboni with no money for food or shelter.
“I talked to him yesterday (Tuesday) and he told me that they are just surviving by God’s grace. They just sleep on the pavements where it is so cold at night and sometimes they are rained on,” Moraa said.
Moraa and her two children aged 10 years and seven months have suffered after she was evicted from her house in Mariakani.
“I owed two months arrears for March and April and so I was evicted. A kind friend has accommodated me and my children in the meantime,” Moraa said. She is currently out of work due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Besides Kialu, the others are Patrick Mwangala, Martin Mwaghazi, Michael Mjala, Gabriel Otieno, Elia Mwalili and Abbas Mutuku.
The seven are employees of Solution Engineering Limited, a structural and mechanical engineering company in Nairobi.
In a letter to the Department of Immigration in January 2020, the company’s director Allarakia Suleman said they had been contracted by a Djibouti national to scrap a wrecked metal ship in Kismayo.
The assignment ended on March 31 and the seven left for Kenya, arriving at Kiunga on April 6. The ban on international travel into the country had come into effect.
“They contacted Lamu county commissioner Irungu Macharia who refused to allow them into Kenya because of the coronavirus. They wrote another letter to him but they are yet to get a response,” Purity said.
On Tuesday, Muslims for Human Rights chairman Khelef Khalifa asked Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i to allow the seven passage into the country.
“Article 39 of the Kenyan Constitution expressly talks of the freedom of movement. The seven stranded in Somalia are Kenyan citizens and constitutionally, ought to be in the country by now,” Khalifa said.
Muhuri claims that the county commissioner has maintained his stance despite its efforts to dialogue with him.
Moraa's desire is to have an audience with the county commissioner to plead for her husband and the other six.
“They were just being responsible fathers when they went there to work and earn a living for their families. Why should they be punished for that?” she said.
(edited by o. owino)
