Kenyan Ambassador to Thailand Kiptiness Lindsay Kimwole has revealed that 129 Kenyans rescued from Myanmar are now stuck at the Thailand border.
The 129 Kenyans are among foreigners who went to Myanmar over the promise of lucrative jobs, only to find scammers who forced them to commit various online crimes, including scamming, fraud, identity theft, phishing, romance scams and cryptocurrency fraud.
Speaking to Citizen TV, Kimwole explained that the Thailand government gave stringent conditions for foreigners stranded at the border.
These conditions include allowing 300 foreigners to enter Thailand per day, out of 7,000 stranded at the Myanmar-Thai border.
All foreigners other than the Chinese can be received at the border point only on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday have been reserved for the Chinese victims only.
Further, Kenyans stranded at the border must seek approval from the Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a factor that has presented further challenges.
“There is a problem here because the victims are in the hands of two armed groups- Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and Border Guard Force (BGF), who are fighting the Myanmar military,” he said.
He explained that the BGF is willing to hand over the victims to the Myanmar government, but DKBA declined to do so.
“They want to hand over directly to Thailand (like the handing over of the first batch they undertook on 12th February, but Thailand does not want to deal with Non-State actors though they received the first batch from the DKBA, positions have shifted),” Kimwole pointed out.
“We have 47 Kenyans in the hands of DKBA and 82 in the hands of BGF. So the crisis is not over yet.”
He assured the public that the government is working round the clock to bring the Kenyans home.
