Unemployed and shunned as possible coronavirus carriers, Ethiopian migrant labourers are returning home by the thousands, placing a huge strain on Ethiopia’s poorly equipped medical system. More than 30,000 workers have re-entered Ethiopia since mid-March, according to the government, some of them after suffering abuse and detention in unhealthy conditions in the countries they left, often on the Persian Gulf or in other parts of Africa. At least 927 migrant labourers were infected with the virus when they returned, Ethiopian officials say, but the true number is probably much higher. The government has not updated that figure for more than a month, and it does not include those who have slipped back into the country unnoticed. Dr. Yohanes Tesfaye, who runs a government Covid-19 treatment center near the eastern city of Dire Dawa, said that within a month of opening, the center had treated 248 infected migrants. And, he warned, “we have a long border, so we can’t be sure” whether many more people with the virus are entering the country undetected. Before the pandemic, about 100,000 Ethiopians made the perilous trip each year to other parts of the world to find work — often illegally — as maids, construction workers, drivers, hairdressers, guards and more. The largest number make their way to the Arabian Peninsula, though workers have also been sent back this year by Lebanon, India, Pakistan, the United States, Kenya and other countries.
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
