Kenya’s minister for foreign affairs, Alfred Mutua, on Tuesday left the country for Saudi Arabia to meet with authorities and the Kenya diaspora to gather more information about the challenges faced by Kenyan workers in the Gulf state.
This comes after news last month that 85 Kenyan women working abroad – mostly in Saudi Arabia – had died in the previous three months according to Mr Mutua.
Another 1,000 Kenyan women had been repatriated, he added.
Mr Mutua’s travels come on the back of a meeting held on Monday with representatives of employment agents who recruit Kenyans for jobs in Saudi Arabia and other regions.
The meeting, which he termed as “complex with mind-boggling revelations”, was aimed at finding lasting solutions for the diaspora workers.
“The information gathered [from the agents] paints a different story from the blame-game trending in the media channels,” Mr Mutua said.
In 2021 Kenya’s foreign ministry said 89 Kenyans, most of them domestic workers, had died in Saudi Arabia in the previous two years.
The deaths were however attributed to cardiac arrest.
BBC NEWS
