According to DW Africa, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has placed a visa ban on citizens of 20 African nations wishing to travel to Dubai.
The ban is effective immediately.
These nations are Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast, Congo, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Comoros, Cameroon, Nigeria, Liberia, Burundi, Republic of Guinea, Gambia, Togo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Cameroon, and Uganda.
One of the justifications offered for the restriction, according to the German news source, is that many people who enter the nation on visit visas wind up overstaying their permits and working illegally while doing so.
This comes merely a month after Nigeria’s foreign ministry announced that Nigerians under the age of 40 will no longer be issued tourist visas to the United Arab Emirates as the Emirati “introduced a new visa regime and has stopped issuing tourist visas to persons under the age of 40 years, except for those applying for family visas.”
This is not the first time Ghana and other African countries have been barred from travelling to Dubai.
Emirates Airline announced on December 28, 2021, that eight African countries will not be accepted to travel to or through Dubai until further notice due to the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.
The countries included: Ghana, Angola, Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Ethiopia.
Akua Karle Okyere
Akua Karle Okyere is a lifestyle blogger at The Vocal Ghanaian and also a PR technician. She enjoys researching on travels and tours and writing fictional stories in her leisure time.