UK removes Kenya, Turkey from ‘Red List’ travel ban

By: Horndiplomat and kbc

Kenya and Turkey are among eight other countries that will be removed from the red list by the United Kingdom effective 4 am on September 22, 2021.

Other countries that have been removed from the list include Pakistan, Maldives, Egypt, Oman, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

The UK has revised its restrictions on the countries that its citizens are banned from travelling to over coronavirus.

As part of a major travel overhaul announced Friday by Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, the ‘traffic light’ system will be scrapped, replaced with a single red list and simplified measures for the rest of the world.

Additionally under the new regime, effective from October 4, double-jabbed travellers from ‘safe’ countries will no longer have to take any sort of test before they get on a flight home from overseas; and, from later in October, only a lateral flow on their second day back in the UK, rather than a costly PCR test.

In her remarks to the changes, UK’s High Commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott said that the UK and Kenya’s partnership had been difficult since the travel ban, but the partnership remains strong.

Some of the countries that still remain on the red list include Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe among others.