How WhatsApp mums saved Kenya’s castaway children

In March, Global Britain signed a new, post-Brexit trade deal with Kenya. This was a welcome agreement for my homeland, where the pandemic has caused tremendous economic suffering, but where comparatively few deaths have occurred among the fit, young population. Weeks later, on 9 April, the UK condemned its former colony to the red list of countries. Non-citizens were banned from travelling to the UK from Kenya, while arriving UK passport holders faced a £1,750, ten-day incarceration in a quarantine hotel.

Such extreme measures were imposed on the excuse that a ‘significant’ number of passengers arriving from Nairobi tested positive for a variant of concern. It appears that, in fact, 17 out of 2,993 passengers from Kenya in the six weeks prior to the ban had this variant. Kenya’s government, rightly furious at the injustice, responded by imposing similar restrictive measures against Britons travelling to Kenya, including UK passport holders resident in this country. All direct flights were suspended.

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Around 25,000 British passport holders live in Kenya. UK companies are among the top investors and taxpayers here. Nearly 140,000 British tourists visit Kenya annually, adoring the country for its safaris and beaches, maintaining links that are built on decades of family history and a recognition that this is truly among the most wonderful places in the world. The collapse of tourism in the past 18 months has pushed nearly two million people out of work and, without safari pounds to fund wildlife conservation, there are terrible consequences for pristine wilderness and the rare species we all wish to rescue from extinction.

Suddenly, UK residents in Kenya faced separation from loved ones stranded overseas. This included thousands of children at schools in the old country, plus of course many Kenyans wanting to travel for business and education.