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Kenyan Students Among Foreigners Stuck in Coronavirus-Hit Chinese City

Rael Ombuor

   NAIROBI - In an effort to contain the coronavirus, Wuhan, the Chinese
   city of about 11 million people, has locked down thousands of
   foreigners, including African students, most on scholarships. They are
   now trapped in the city where the virus was first detected and
   continues to spread.

   Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Njomo arrived in Wuhan city last
   September.
   He applied for a competitive scholarship to study administrative
   management and was awarded it after several attempts.
   The new coronavirus emerged just when he was settling in at Huazhong
   University of Science and Technology. The WhatsApp group for Kenyan
   students in China stopped talking about academics, and started checking
   on each other and sharing information about the disease.
   He says the death toll kept rising and before he knew it, the city was
   under lockdown. He says he and his colleagues are afraid to circulate
   in the city.
   "Some of them are very scared here in their rooms, like the whole day
   they remain indoors," he said. "Those are the directions we have been
   given by the authorities here, to avoid much interaction. If you pay
   much attention on that [the death toll], I don't know what will happen
   to you because there is so much information from different people. The
   more you listen to them, the more you pay attention, the more scared
   you become."

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