Plans to delay deportation of illegal expats back to their country?

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KUWAIT CITY, Apr 12: Although Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Al-Nasser announced yesterday the resumption of flights to deport illegal expats from Kuwait will start from next week, the crisis of deporting the violating expats does not seem to have been finally resolved and not as easily as expected by the relevant authorities weeks ago but the procedures have started.

The violators, whose statistics estimated at 167,000 are expected to increase with companies laying off thousands of expats due to the Corona crisis, which raises the number of residents required to be deported from the country this month and the coming months to about a quarter of a million violators.

The sources clarify that, given the evacuation plan that Kuwait applied to repatriate its citizens from abroad which is estimated at 19 days to evacuate 40,000. The evacuation of such a large number of expats will take much long time extend to months and may exceed a year .

According to the sources, this situation will put greater pressure on the state, and increase the burdens and costs, in order to accommodate and feed this large number, as well as the worse health risks, which can result from their accumulation in shelters and quarries.

Some countries of the violators currently have refused to receive their nationals present in Kuwait, stressing that those countries are trying to buy time in order to provide necessary quarrantine facitilies and medical assistance required upon their arrival. Referring to there are about 5600 residents currently detained in 9 regions of the country, other than the infected and suspects, according to the sources .

According to the sources, the Egyptian side confirmed its readiness from next week to receive its citizens from the violators of residency who surrendered themselves from April 6 to 10. The sources pointed out that there are several options that will be considered and appropriate follow-up with countries that are still hesitant to receive their citizens from violators of residence, indicating that the next few days will reveal the mechanism of dealing in this file.

The sources added that all those who applied to take advantage of the deadline had signed a medical examination of the Corona virus to make sure of their infection with the virus or not till now no cases were recorded until late yesterday evening.

The sources indicated that the residence violators who received themselves are receiving good medical and nutritional care, and that the state has provided them with centers equipped to stay within them until they leave their home countries, pointing out that the process of receiving residence violators continues until the end of this month.

Egyptian expats

Diplomatic sources at the Egyptian embassy reaffirmed that Egypt did not refuse to receive its nationals, but that coordination was taking place to give a deadline for completing the health system’s preparations along the lines followed in all countries of the world.

The Egyptian embassy had previously informed the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry on April 2 clearly before the start of the process of collecting Egyptian residency violators in the shelters that it was not ready to receive them with these numbers at the specified dates from the Kuwaiti side, but it was suggested that the registration of the violators of the Egyptian residency be postponed to the end April to avoid the expected problems in this regard.

The sources added that Egypt, like the rest of the world, restricts air traffic to the utmost degree in observance of the global precautionary measures to prevent the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, and that its citizens will be received gradually and according to how the health system in Egypt can handle the capacity, noting that Egypt was one of the first countries to operate flights exceptional for Kuwait and many countries to return their nationals including Kuwait which has seen the largest number of trips to evacuate stranded community members with a total of six trips.

Indian expats

In a related development, the Indian Supreme Court said that the Indians who were stranded abroad cannot be repatriated during the current total ban period and the flights to India are suspended.

The Indian News Agency, ANI reported that the Supreme Court made this remark while hearing petitions calling for the evacuation of the stranded Indians from the Gulf states and elsewhere.

The Supreme Court heard seven petitions calling for joint calls to evacuate stranded Indian citizens abroad, ranging from students, working professionals, unskilled workers, and fishermen in the United Kingdom, the United States, Iran, and other Gulf states

The court noted that returning the expatriate Indians at this time would be a violation of the travel restrictions (COVID-19) imposed by the central government.

The Indian state urged its nationals to stay in their place and hearing all requests for their evacuation was postponed for a month according to reports.

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