Two aircraft from the national carrier Egypt Air were dispatched Tuesday to Kuwait to fly out Egyptian citizens stranded in the Gulf country, which is facing an increase in the number of covid-19 infections, Egyptian Streets reports.
An unidentified number of Egyptians have found themselves blocked in the oil-rich Gulf country after authorities in March suspended all in-coming and outgoing commercial flights in a move to curb the spread of the disease.
Last Sunday, the stranded Egyptians, sheltered in centers outside capital Kuwait City, staged a protest movement demanding the intervention of the Egyptian embassy to take them out of the country. Kuwait security forces used tear gas to quell the protest.
The Kuwaiti government rebuffed the riots that were not caused by mistreatment inside the centers nor a shortage in supplies, said government spokesman Tareq Al-Mezrem.
“Expatriates staged riots to press their demands for their country’s authorities to be repatriated,” Al-Mezrem said.
The Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait utterly rejected as “deplorable” the protests, underlining that such behaviors are totally unacceptable.
Expats, making around 3.2 million of Kuwait’s nearly 5 million population, have become increasingly subject to xenophobia. Several leading figures asked authorities to flash out expats amid the covid-19 pandemic.
Over 6,280 people have been infected in Kuwait while at least 42 of them have died.
