[All Africa] The government was last evening mum as the reality of a visa ban on Kenyan citizens wanting to travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) started to sink in.
Several global media outlets announced on Thursday that Kenya was among 13 countries whose citizens will not get visas to travel to the UAE until further notice. The bad news came just hours before national carrier Kenya Airways was to make its maiden direct cargo flight between Mombasa and the UAE. Other countries affected by the ban are Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
, Algeria, Iraq, Leb
 ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, Pakistain and Tunisia, Iran, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
, Syria and Somalia.
Citing a document issued by a UAE owned state business park, Rooters said the ban was effected due to security reasons. It shall only affect those applying for new visas. It is still not clear how many categories of visas will be affected by the suspension. UAE has several visa categories including tourist, student, transit and business. Nevertheless, the ban which came into effect on November 18 courtesy of an immigration circular did not have specific concerns that Abu Dhabi has on issuing visas to citizens of the affected countries.
"It was not clear if there were any exceptions to the ban. The UAE's Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship had no immediate comment," said Rooters. Government front man Cyrus Oguna did not respond to our questions on why exactly Kenya was part of a list of countries whose majority had somehow unstable security situations back home.
Quoting an unnamed diplomat, Rooters said that some of the listed states have strained relationships with the UAE. Pakistain which is the only country in the list that has publicly admitted its citizens have been locked from accessing the UAE, said it had written to Abu Dhabi seeking an explanation. The Pakistain Foreign Ministry however said it suspects that the suspension was related to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
pandemic.
Almost all countries in the list are currently grappling with the very high Covid 19 infection rates. Yesterday, Kenya recorded 780 new Covid-19 cases from 6,158 samples raising nationwide tally to 80,102. This is as the number of fatalities rose to 1,427 after 10 more patients succumbed to the virus.
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