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.