Kuwait rejects ‘riots’ by residence violators
Ministry of Education shut
KUWAIT CITY, May 5, (KUNA): Kuwait government rebuffed the riots that took place at centers in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh and Kabd housing expatriates who were in violation of the residency law, Spokesman Tareq AlMezrem said.
“Expatriates in the two centers staged riots to press their demands for their country’s authorities to be repatriated,” Al-Mezrem told a press conference following a Cabinet meeting, chaired by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.
The riots were not caused by mistreatment inside the centers nor a shortage in supplies, said Al-Mezrem.
“Security authorities were present and restored order inside the centers,” he said.
The government, added the spokesman, contacted authorities in the other countries to facilitate their citizens’ repatriation.
The Ministry of Interior prepared those special housing centers for more than three weeks ago for the expatriates ahead of their deportation.
The Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait utterly rejected “deplorable” happenings at centers for residency law breakers late Sunday, but appreciated the way Kuwaiti authorities addressed the matter.
The embassy said in a press statement it trusts the wisdom of the Interior Ministry’s personnel, underlining that such behaviors are totally unacceptable.
It added that officials of the Egyptian Consulate in Kuwait had been sent to the centers to meet representatives of the Egyptians kept there, with Kuwaiti officials attending.
It made it clear that it had urged those Egyptians to avert making any trouble, reassuring that evacuation flights would commence this week.
The embassy noted that it was coordinating, with Kuwaiti officials, arrangements for evacuation flights, saying that two such planes carrying women, children and seniors would fly to Cairo this week.
It, once more, called on Egyptians kept in the residency law breakers’ centers to follow Kuwaiti security guidelines and to steer away from rumors and riots.
Kuwaiti security forces controlled a riot by Egyptians held in centers where violators of residency law are kept ahead of sending them back to their own countries.
MoE shuts down
The Ministry of Education has stopped work in all its sectors after discovering a single coronavirus infection case among the staff.
Faisal Al-Maqseed, the assistant undersecretary and official spokesman of the ministry, said in a press statement that stoppage covered all studios where long distance teaching lessons were recorded.
Some sectors of the ministry have pursued work to tackle necessary issues, in the shadow of the coronavirus crisis, where the State imposed a general lockdown affecting the public sector and various fields in the country
The whole ministry building was sterlizied after discovering the single case, he added, expressing gratitude to the civil defense and the ministry of defense for their rapid response to the ministry call for disinfecting the building.
Measures maintained
Kuwaiti authorities are maintaining precautionary measures and internationally concurred procedures against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pending restoration of normal life, a ranking official affirmed.
Ministry of Health officials briefed the ministers during Tuesday’s Cabinet session about the local current status of the contagion, said Dr Buthaina AlMudhaf, the assistant undersecretary for public health affairs at the MoH.
The executives addressed were briefed about statistics and precautions that have been taken since the germ crept into the country, as well as enormous efforts that have been exerted to contain and control the pandemic, said Dr Al-Mudhaf.
She was speaking at a joint news conference with the official government Spokesperson Tareq Mizrem and the assistant professor for epidemics science at Kuwait University, Dr Mohammad Al-Khamees.
Dr Al-Mudhaf said she and her peers spoke, during the session, about methods employed to deal with local cases, challenges facing experts in bids to control the pandemic, tasks of epidemic tracing, regions’ isolation, namely districts of Jleeb Al-Shoyoukh and Al-Mahboula, with respect of number of the cases counted, in addition to future plans to isolate other densely populated areas where a large number of cases have been found.
She stressed on necessity of adhering to the precautionary measures, namely social distancing, as the means to pave way for restoring normal living in the country.
For his part, Professor Al-Khamees said the health officials advised the ministers about employment of state-of-art mathematical and computing methods in tracking the infection cases geographically and on daily basis.
Conditions in Kuwait, in the beginning, were under control however the pandemic later started spreading at community level, he said, describing how the pandemic status evolved at the local level.
He revealed that these methods helped in discovering the pandemic spread at the community level. Moreover, they proved useful for taking decisions on partial and full isolation of some regions.
Furthermore, these mathematical patterns shed light on how the virus spread from a single person to several others – meaning the community outbreak. They were also used to pinpoint infested locations, helping health decision makers to set priorities for opening or closing contaminated districts.
Also in the beginning of the breakout, “We have had 30 major infested zones.. we have tackled nearly half of them..,” he said, disclosing that 15 regions still contained contamination cases.
Earlier, Al-Mizrem said Minister of Health Sheikh Dr Bassel Al-Sabah, head of the team tasked with following up on the coronavirus status, informed the ministers about latest developments at the international level.
Dr Al-Mudhaf and Dr Al-Khamees gave a lengthy presentation during the session about the cases in the country from a perspective encompassing factors such as geography, age and nationality – in contrast to the pandemic status in other countries. 90% of works to be done electronically Kuwait Municipality Director General Ahmad Al-Manfouhi declared on Monday readiness to make 90 percent of transactions electronically once regular work resumes following stoppage resulting from the coronavirus crisis.
Al-Manfouhi said in a statement that some transactions, namely issuance of construction permits and restoration of electricity, continued during the current crisis via the advanced electronic system.
He has indicated that some work cannot be done electronically because they are linked to other departments.
The municipality has recently issued 192 construction permits and restored power to several districts.