Over 300 Ugandans abandon their passports at the Chinese Embassy

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has revealed that it received over 300 passports from the Chinese embassy, which were abandoned by Ugandans who had gone to apply for visas.

Some of these passports, according to the ministry were left at the Chinese embassy 3 years back, before the government had rolled out the EAC polycarbonate E – passports.

According to Simon Peter Mundeyi, the ministry’s spokesperson, some of the passports delivered to them by the Chinese embassy, are having visas which already expired.

“Some of these by the way have visas that have since expired and are now canceled. Visas were granted to all of them that had applied, but up to now since last week the embassy has brought them back,” he said.

Mundeyi added that the decision made by the Chinese embassy to return the passports to the ministry was aimed at making it easy for the owners to pick them since they are not the property of the Chinese government.

“I am not going to give you details of the owners because it is in contravention of the privacy law. But I just wanted to notify you about some people who paid money for visas at the Chinese embassy, visas got processed but abandoned their passports there,” he noted.

Last week the ministry revealed to have collected other passports abandoned by Ugandans from the Turkish embassy and others are being compiled from the Schengen countries.

Among the Schengen countries include Germany, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, and Italy, among others.

According to macro trends organization that releases global trends that last over time, the current net migration rate for Uganda in 2024 is -2.108 per 1000 population, a 10.94% decline from 2023.

The net migration rate for Uganda in 2023 was -2.367 per 1000 population, a 117.16% increase from 2022.