Kenya Has No Capacity to Save Its Over 500,000 Citizens Stuck in the Middle East Fire, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Appears to Say

When the bombs started falling across the Middle East and the skies above the Gulf filled with smoke, more than 500,000 Kenyans — domestic workers, construction labourers, nurses, hospitality staff — were left to fend for themselves. The Kenyan government’s message, dressed in the careful language of diplomacy, amounted to this: get out if you can, and pay for it yourself.

Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi issued a statement on Friday telling Kenyans in the region to make their own arrangements through “available commercial airlines or licensed travel agents” if they wished to depart. There was no mention of evacuation flights. There was no mention of government-chartered aircraft. There was no mention of financial assistance for workers whose employers have, in many cases, been holding their passports.

The advisory effectively handed the bill — and the burden — to the very people least equipped to carry it: migrant workers earning poverty wages in foreign countries, many of whom are legally and physically trapped by the kafala system that governs employment in Gulf states and strips workers of the right to leave without employer permission.

A hotline that no one answers

The dysfunction of Kenya’s crisis response machinery was exposed in a spot check conducted by a local publication, which placed calls and WhatsApp messages to ten official emergency contacts listed by the State Department for Diaspora Affairs and Kenyan missions across the Gulf and Middle East, including embassies in Israel, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Kenyan consulates in Dubai and Jeddah.

The results were damning. The State Department for Diaspora Affairs operates what it grandly describes as a 24-hour diaspora emergency hotline. The department’s own promotional material promises that calls will be answered within four rings or 30 seconds. When the reporter called, the line did not ring at all. Multiple attempts returned the same automated response: out of service.

The hotline that is supposed to be the first point of contact for any Kenyan facing a crisis abroad — the number listed on government websites, circulated by embassies, and cited in official advisories — was dead.

Of the nine embassy and consulate contacts tested, only the Kenyan mission in Tel Aviv returned a direct call. A Kenyan official there phoned back in the early morning hours after receiving a WhatsApp inquiry about evacuation plans. He said contingency plans existed and described the situation as “fluid yet manageable” — a formulation that captured perfectly the gap between official posture and the lived reality of Kenyans watching missiles light up the sky on their phones.

The Kenyan Embassy in Qatar did not answer repeated calls placed at dawn and again later in the morning. It responded only after a WhatsApp message was sent. When a worker asked what to do if their employer refused to release their passport in the event of an emergency evacuation, the embassy replied that it would assist “when the time comes” — and then asked for the worker’s name, passport number, and next-of-kin details to be emailed to a labour desk.

The response from Oman was to direct Kenyans to an online registration portal. The embassy in Kuwait sent a generic notice urging Kenyans in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Lebanon to register on the government’s diaspora platform. The Dubai consulate eventually responded, pointing to a registration link and noting that, in a worst-case scenario, Kenyans without passports could obtain an emergency travel document at the consulate — a useful piece of information buried under hours of silence.

The Kenyan embassies in Saudi Arabia and the Jeddah consulate had no WhatsApp presence at all, cutting off the primary communication channel used by hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in the Kingdom. The emergency contact for the Tehran embassy appeared to have an active WhatsApp account but remained offline for the entire period of inquiry. The Abu Dhabi embassy did not respond to calls or messages at all.

Njogu’s media disappearing act

The Ministry’s communication problems were further illustrated by an embarrassing episode that played out in public on Wednesday. Principal Secretary for Diaspora Affairs Roseline Njogu was scheduled to appear on a KTN Prime panel discussion on the Middle East conflict alongside the ambassadors of Iran and Israel to Kenya.

Then she vanished. A poster advertising the programme circulated widely on social media. Njogu subsequently issued a statement denying she had agreed to appear, accusing KTN of “disinformation” and declaring the network “out of order.” The Standard Group, which operates KTN, maintained that Njogu had earlier agreed to a phone interview during the 9 pm news bulletin. KTN clarified that the ambassadors were to be hosted on a separate occasion and that the poster was intended only to preview the broadcast lineup.

The following day, Foreign Affairs PS Korir Singoei was deployed to clean up the mess. He issued a statement describing the episode as a scheduling matter, insisting there had been no intention to mislead the public. He neither confirmed nor denied that Njogu had agreed to appear. The episode left the public with the uncomfortable image of the country’s top diaspora official refusing to face the cameras at the precise moment 500,000 Kenyans needed her to.

How other countries are doing it

The contrast with how other governments have handled the same crisis is instructive and humiliating in equal measure.

Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport together operated more than 1,140 flights in a 84-hour window between March 2 and 5, offering roughly 105,000 outbound seats to travellers from more than 80 countries. Airport authorities noted that the number of flights was likely to increase as airlines expanded schedules to absorb demand from those seeking to leave the region.

The Sultanate of Oman, coordinating with international airlines and foreign governments, organised dedicated flights enabling nationals of what it described as “brotherly and friendly countries” to return home safely. Oman’s approach was proactive, structured, and communicated clearly through official channels.

Governments across South and Southeast Asia — countries whose migrant worker populations rival Kenya’s in scale — have emergency evacuation infrastructure that includes government-chartered aircraft, dedicated crisis funds, and consular staff trained to deal with mass departure scenarios. The Philippines maintains a permanent overseas workers welfare architecture with emergency repatriation as a core function. India has demonstrated in previous Middle East crises, including the 2015 Yemen evacuation, that it can move tens of thousands of citizens out of conflict zones in a matter of days.

Kenya has no equivalent architecture. The State Department for Diaspora Affairs was established in 2022 under President William Ruto with much fanfare, promising a new era of responsiveness to the needs of Kenyans abroad. Its emergency hotline, which apparently cannot be reached, is the most visible measure of how far that promise remains from fulfilment.

Workers trapped by the kafala system

At the heart of the crisis is a structural vulnerability that the Kenyan government has consistently failed to address. The kafala system, which ties migrant workers’ legal status to a single employer and prohibits departure without employer consent, is in force across the Gulf states where the vast majority of Kenya’s diaspora works.

Passport confiscation, while technically illegal under Kenyan and international law, is routine. Workers who attempt to leave without permission risk arrest, deportation, and blacklisting from future employment. In a conflict scenario, these are not abstract risks. They are the difference between getting on a flight and being stranded.

When this reporter asked the Qatar embassy what a worker should do if their employer refused to release their passport as the security situation deteriorated, the response was to wait until “the time comes” and then contact the labour desk. There was no protocol. There was no urgency. There was no acknowledgment that the question described a situation already affecting workers across the region.

Half a trillion shillings at stake

The government’s apparent indifference is remarkable given the economic stakes. Remittances from the Gulf and broader Middle East region represent one of Kenya’s largest sources of foreign exchange, running into billions of dollars annually. Kenya’s total trade volume with Gulf countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar stood at $6 billion as of 2024, with agricultural exports — fresh flowers, fruit and vegetables — flowing through the very air corridors now disrupted by conflict.

The Central Bank of Kenya consistently ranks the Middle East among the top sources of diaspora remittances. Any prolonged disruption to the movement and employment of Kenyan workers in the region will feed directly into household incomes, school fees, and the informal credit chains that run through communities across the country.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged this in its Friday statement, noting that the conflict could disrupt trade flows and that it was working with Kenya Airways to secure special cargo permits and additional flight capacity for perishable exports. The government’s greater anxiety, it appeared, was for the flower consignments than for the workers.

Mudavadi’s reassurances ring hollow

Musalia Mudavadi

Mudavadi said in his Friday statement that no Kenyan casualties had been reported since hostilities began and that the government’s “top priority” was the safety and welfare of citizens abroad. He said Kenya’s seven embassies and two consulates across the region had “activated emergency and contingency response mechanisms, including evacuation plans should the security situation deteriorate further.”

The gap between that statement and the experience of a Kenyan worker trying to reach an embassy that does not answer its phone was left unaddressed. PS Singoei, meanwhile, said the State Department for Diaspora was playing a “frontline role” in addressing the welfare of diaspora communities. The frontline, based on a test of its emergency lines, appears to have been abandoned.

In a crisis, preparedness is measured not by the language of official statements but by whether someone answers the phone. On that test, Kenya is failing its citizens in the Gulf — not quietly, but loudly, and in real time.