Dubai Lifts Ban on Passenger Flights from Kenya

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has lifted a ban on passenger and transit flights from Kenya and 11 other African countries.

Passengers from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe will be able to travel to the UAE from January 29th.

The lifting of the ban was announced by the UAE National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Emergency Management Authority (NCEMA) on Wednesday.

This comes two days after Kenya ended a two-week ban on passenger and transit flights from the Gulf state, which was imposed on January 10th in retaliation against a similar move by Dubai.

Dubai barred entry of flights from Kenya on December 20th, 2021, after establishing that travelers from Nairobi were testing positive for Covid-19 on arrival in the Middle East country despite presenting negative test results.

Investigations revealed that rogue Ministry of Health officials and private medical testing centers were colluding with travelers to issue false Covid-19 PCR results to aid travel to the UAE.