Deporting Over 100 Foreign Healthcare Workers From Somaliland

Over 100 foreign healthcare workers in Somaliland risk being deported after they failed to secure an extension for their work permit.

According to the Labour Ministry, the foreigners’ majority physicians failed to present themselves for vetting of work permit holders.

Workers reportedly hail from several countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

“The government will soon deport over 100 foreign medical practitioners to their respective countries. Majority of these people have no work permit to stay in the country,” a statement from the Labor Ministry reads in part.

 The ministry said the plan will move with speed to deport foreigners who have been living and working in the country illegally.

 The chairperson Somaliland Health Professionals, Ahmed Hanshi Oday confirmed the move saying Somaliland is organizing to deport foreign workers from its region.

“113 foreign physicians whose licenses are expired have no right to work in Somaliland and will be deported,” Oday said.

Somaliland proclaimed independence from the rest of Somalia after the collapse of the central government of Somalia led by the late Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Despite restoring peace in its region, but Somaliland has poor medical system.

This comes the same day that the country’s Minister of Health Development, Dr Hassan, is receiving medical treatments in private expensive hospital, Haldoor, which most of the doctors are foreigners from Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia and Russia. The citizens believe public hospitals that they are few in number and poorly funded and managed, and government officials and businessmen usually seek medical treatment abroad.