COVID-19: 134,000 expats left Kuwait in 2020

Cairo: Around 134,000 expatriates left Kuwait last year amid coronavirus-related restrictions, reducing the total number of foreigners in the Gulf country by 4 per cent to reach 3.2 million, official figures have shown.

Indians took the lead in the numbers of the departing expatriates, accounting for 52 per cent of the total over the period from January to December, figures from Kuwait’s Public Authority for Civil Information. The figure meant a drop of 69,592 in the overall number of the Indian community that stood at 989,270 at the end of 2020 against 1.5 million the previous year, according to the statistics carried by the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai.

Coming second is the Egyptian community that accounted for 22.5 per cent of the total number of foreigners who left Kuwait during the above-mentioned period. Around 30,032 Egyptians departed from Kuwait, cutting the overall number of their community in the country to 666,050 people at the end of last year against 696,082 in 2019, the figures have shown.

Departing expatriates

The Bangladeshis followed in the third place. Some 13,076 Bangladeshis left Kuwait last year, accounting for 10 per cent of the overall number of the departing expatriates. The figure sent the number of the Bangladeshi community in Kuwait going down from 282,591 people in 2019 to 269,515 at the end of last year.

The number of Filipinos, meanwhile, dropped in Kuwait after 6,111 of them left last year, reducing the number of the Philippine community in the country to 241,113 at the end of last year against 247,224 the previous year.

In recent months, there have been increasing calls in Kuwait for limiting foreigners’ numbers to redress a demographic imbalance amid accusations that migrants have strained the country’s infrastructure facilities while the global coronavirus pandemic has prompted authorities to enforce a set of health restrictions.