Kenya to allocate 775,000 USD to evacuate nationals stranded in Middle East – The East Observer

Kenya announced Wednesday it will allocate 100 million shillings (around 775,000 U.S. dollars) to support security and other agencies in evacuating its citizens trapped in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon due to the volatile situation in the region.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who also serves as the cabinet secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, told the Senate that the government is committed to ensuring that no Kenyan, out of the 26,000 in the region, is left stranded amid the ongoing insecurity in the Middle East.

“After the government reached out to the Kenyans in Lebanon, I informed the Senators that a number of them had said they were comfortable there and would reach out to the government when the situation was unbearable,” Mudavadi said according to a statement issued after his address in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Since Sept. 23, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, targeting what it claims are Hezbollah positions. The attacks have resulted in significant casualties and displaced hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country.

Mudavadi said that, through the Kenyan embassy in Kuwait, about 1,500 Kenyans have already registered for government support, including evacuation, an enormous task that the government is prioritizing.

He also noted that the government is in the advanced stages of developing a strategy to assist Kenyans caught in regions facing humanitarian crises. However, financial constraints have hindered smooth operations in such situations.

Mudavadi emphasized that the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs is working diligently to ensure that no lives are lost, and no Kenyan is left stranded. ■