Coronavirus: Kenya to bring its Wuhan students home, urges Ethiopia to suspend China flights
- President Uhuru Kenyatta says students who want to be repatriated must spend 14 days in quarantine in Kenya
- Urging Ethiopia to halt China flights ‘is about protecting our citizens from the risk of infection’, Kenyatta says
Kenya will evacuate its students trapped in the Wuhan lockdown and has urged its East African neighbour, Ethiopia, to suspend flights to China to help contain the deadly and fast-spreading coronavirus.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said students who wanted to be repatriated would have to spend 14 days in quarantine in Kenya to ensure they do not spread the virus. But, some African countries insist their citizens are better off staying in China.
Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that around 88 Kenyan students were in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in Hubei province. The figure could be higher, given there might be some who have not registered with the Kenyan embassy in Beijing, the ministry said.
“We have some students [in Wuhan] … we will support them,” Kenyatta said.
The commitment was in response to calls from students caught in lockdowns imposed in major cities in Hubei, in a bid to contain the illness that has spread to Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Jeffrey Okundi, a Kenyan student at Wuhan Botanical Garden, said conditions were dire.