Dozens of Kenyans could be stranded in Qatar for lack of travel documents and air tickets. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Dozens of Kenyans could be stranded in Qatar for lack of travel
documents and air tickets after falling out with their employers,
sources say.
The Kenyans, most of them recruited by
Mombasa-based travel agencies, are said to be languishing in the Arab
country after they protested over working conditions.
“Salary
was our biggest issue. We were not being paid on time and sometimes we
could work for four months without pay so we decided to boycott duty in
2017,” said one of them.
He went to Qatar in 2016 and has worked as a housekeeper, tea boy and swimming pool attendant.
He is owed one year arrears of his monthly salary of about Sh33,000.
“In
March this year we went on strike again. The company later terminated
our contracts and evicted us from its houses. We went to court and the
firm was ordered to house us until the case is heard and determined,” he
said.
The story is the same among all the stranded
Kenyans, some have lived in Qatar since 2013. They said it has been
difficult to follow the case “because everything is done in Arabic which
we do not understand.”
“We have been living on the
streets and depending on left overs and food from garbage dumps. But
luckily this year Qatar Red Crescent heard our pleas and started
providing us with free food.”
On Wednesday, Council of
Imams and Preachers of Kenya secretary-general Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa,
human rights groups and some families of the stranded people asked
Foreign Affairs secretary Monica Juma to rescue them.
Sheikh Khalifa urged Labour secretary Ukur Yatani to revoke licences of firms that are duping Kenyans abroad.
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