Indian citizens have begun returning home from Arab states in the Gulf as part of a massive operation to repatriate them.
Migrant workers in the Gulf have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and many have been anxious to leave. Some nationalities have been able to do so...
Blog archive: All
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10th May 2020
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9th May 2020Jordan announced new measures yesterday to stem the spread of Covid-19 infections from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The move is in response to a new outbreak of the disease which was brought into Jordan by a cross-border truck driver. The driver had been tested at the...
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8th May 2020Among the Arab countries, Jordan has been one of the most successful in combating the spread of Covid-19 coronavirus. By Wednesday, 10 days had elapsed without any new infections coming to light inside the kingdom but now there's a sudden spate of new cases. Twenty-nine have been reported...
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7th May 2020Evidence has emerged that the Houthi movement's unrecognised government in northern Yemen is concealing Covid-19 infections even after they have been confirmed by laboratory testing. So far, the Houthis have not acknowledged any cases among Yemenis in the areas they control, though they have...
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6th May 2020The Houthis who rule over much of northern Yemen have now confirmed what many had long suspected: that the Covid-19 virus is present in the territory they control. Yesterday their health minister announced that a man found dead in a hotel in the capital, Sana'a, on Sunday had been...
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5th May 2020Saudi firms that run into financial trouble because of the coronavirus epidemic will be allowed to cut workers' wages by 40% – and then sack them after six months – under a decision approved by the kingdom's ministry of human resources. In legal terms, it means companies can break existing...
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4th May 2020At the end of March, President Sisi hailed Egypt's efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic as "good and reassuring". Amid such confidence, his regime even made a show of sending medical aid to worse-hit countries such as Italy and the United States. Now, little more than a month later, the...
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3rd May 2020Ten Covid-19 cases have now been confirmed in war-torn Yemen where health services face an increasingly desperate situation. Aside from coronavirus, they are already struggling with at least two other plagues – dengue fever and chikungunya. The seat of the Covid-19 outbreak is the southern...
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2nd May 2020Sudan's Covid-19 outbreak is still in its early stages but growing fast. Confirmed cases have more than doubled over the last five days and now total 533. The vast majority of these infections have occurred in and around the capital, Khartoum, where the authorities imposed a three-week...
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1st May 2020Police in Morocco have arrested more than 80,000 people during the last six weeks for violating the coronavirus lockdown, according to official figures from the Direction Générale de la Sûreté Nationale (DGSN). On Wednesday alone, 4,582 were arrested – the highest daily total so far. Other...
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30th April 2020Covid-19 has reappeared in Yemen with the announcement of five new cases in the southern city of Aden. This could scarcely have come at a worse time. Last week the city was declared a disaster area after flash floods swept several people away and caused streets to be bathed in sewage. In the...
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29th April 2020Thousands of undocumented migrant workers are awaiting repatriation from Kuwait under a government scheme aimed at countering the spread of Covid-19. Crowded living conditions make migrant workers especially vulnerable to infection and the effect of the scheme will be to reduce their numbers...
