Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi during an interview at his office in Nairobi on January 18, 2025.
The Diaspora Affairs Ministry is seeking additional Sh120 million for evacuation and repatriation of Kenyans stranded in Thailand, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The National Assembly’s Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs says the Treasury has not provided additional funds for the Evacuation and Welfare Facility as requested in the Supplementary Budget II.
Mr Nelson Koech, who chairs the committee said the State Department for Diaspora Affairs needs the cash to cater for repatriation and evacuation of Kenyans in distress.
“The additional funding is to cater for repatriation and evacuation of Kenyans in distress from Lebanon, Thailand, and DRC,” he said.
He told the Liaison Committee chaired by Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss to factor in the money in the Supplementary Estimates II for 2024/25.
The committee is processing the additional request of Sh199 billion that the Treasury is seeking the approval of Parliament.
A group of Kenyan domestic workers stranded in Lebanon demands repatriation after a blast in Beirut that led to job losses. They have been sleeping on mattresses outside Kenya's honorary consulate in the country.
The Treasury had allocated the State Department for Diaspora Affairs Sh637.83 million but was reduced in the second mini-budget to Sh633.7 million.
“This reflects a decrease of Sh4.13 million on account of the rationalisation of personnel emoluments,” Mr Koech said.
“The ongoing decline in the State Department budget since it was established has led to significant funding shortfalls, which limit its ability to effectively fulfil its responsibilities.”
The Ministry has been scrambling to rescue Kenyans trapped in various war-torn countries as well as those who have fallen out with their employers in the Middle East.
In 2024, Kenya set aside Sh100 million to evacuate Kenyans stranded in Lebanon after Israel launched airstrikes on militant group Hezbollah.
At the time, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi announced that about 26,000 Kenyans were in Lebanon and evacuating them is a very massive undertaking.
Israel and Hezbollah were embroiled in a conflict in Lebanon, which raised fears of a wider Middle East strife that could suck in Iran and the United States.
The two parties reached a ceasefire agreement on November 27, 2024, after a 14-month-long conflict that Israel reported 56 of its soldiers and 2,762 Hezbollah militants were killed in the invasion.
In the DRC conflict pitying the security forces and militant groups, including M23, which began near the Rwandan border, saw a Kenyan female truck driver held captive for 150 days.
In February 2025, Mr Mudavadi announced the government was considering evacuating Kenyans living and working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following an escalation of violent conflict in the eastern part of the country.
Mr Mudavadi said the DRC government committed to compensate the Kenyan government for damages occasioned on its embassy in the capital Kinshasa by a riotous mob protesting the violent conflict in the Eastern DRC.
M23 rebels seized Goma, the biggest and key city in North Kivu, sparking mass displacement of residents fearing for their lives as government-aligned forces battle the rebels.
Women stand near their luggage in front of the Middle East Airlines (MEA) offices at the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, in Beirut, Lebanon July 28, 2024.
In Thailand, Kenya’s embassy is struggling to evacuate rescued from human trafficking networks in Myanmar.
Kenya said this month that it is in talks with Thailand authorities to reopen the Thai-Myanmar border, aiming to facilitate the evacuation of 64 Kenyans.
The Kenyans are part of a larger group of over 7,000 foreigners freed by armed groups but unable to cross into Thailand since February 12, when the first group of 260 victims, including 23 Kenyans, was allowed entry.
A Myanmar insurgent group, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), which recently raided fraud centres in the region, handed the victims over to Thai authorities on February 12.
The victims, many from Africa said that they were forced “to meet monthly earnings targets of up to $50,000. If they failed, they were tortured.
