Coronavirus leaves thousands of migrant staff stranded in Russia
Thousands of migrant personnel from Central Asia are stuck in Russia as a result of travel bans, leading some to depend on money from your home in an agonizing reversal of 1 of the largest remittance flows on the globe.
"We're up to your ears in debt," said Mr Tolib, a 26 year-old unemployed security guard, who was on his fourth unsuccessful attempt at looking forward to information outside the Tajik embassy in Moscow's upmarket Patriarch's Ponds district, reports Bloomberg.
"We have to purchase rent, food and travel, and we have nothing to go on." The laborers have already been stranded without work in Russia because the Kremlin closed borders in March as a result of pandemic. Many are running out of money after a global monetary slump sapped demand for jobs in the construction and services sectors usually filled by some 4.4 million migrants.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which be based upon money sent home from Russia for greater than a third of gross annual gross domestic product, have already been two of the largest victims of a remittance crisis that swept the globe in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
A GLOBAL Bank survey conducted in-may found that a lot more than 40 % of households in Tajikistan have lessen food consumption due to this fact, while Kyrgyzstan is acquiring emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund.
Before the pandemic, Mr Tolib would send more than half of his US$500 (S$684.81) monthly paycheck back to his mother and two brothers in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, keeping the others to cover rent, bureaucratic fees, and food.
After he lost his job in March, his family had to wire him US$200, but it barely lasted per month. Russia has been slower to restart international flights than other big destinations for foreign laborers just like the US and Germany.
The Tajik embassy started repatriation flights in June, but temporarily suspended the waiting list in July after thousands of folks applied to go back home, according to its website.
Residents of other former-Soviet republics have also faced difficulties. Some 400 Azeris clashed with police in southern Russia because they attempted to cross the closed frontier, and several Uzbek workers create makeshift camps near the border with Kazakhstan because they waited to go home, local media reported.
The World Bank estimated that the amount sent home globally from migrant workers would slump 20 % this season, the sharpest decline in recent history. Europe and Central Asia will be hardest hit, the research found.
"Previously migrants were sending money here, however now their parents and relatives need to send money to Russia instead," said Mr Ikbol Isakov, who runs the general public Foundation Progress NGO in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Usually, migrant workers send about US$13 billion home every year from Russia, that includes a shrinking population and allows most citizens of the former Soviet Union to work visa-free.
Three quarters of foreign personnel lost their jobs or continued unpaid leave during coronavirus lockdowns in April and could, according to a survey conducted by Mr Evgeni Varshaver at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
International transfers from Russia slumped 35 % in-may and June compared to the same period a year ago, according to Unistream, a payment provider favored by Central Asian migrants.
Money flows from Russia accounted for around a third of gross domestic product in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2018.
The Kyrgyz economy could contract by 4 % this season, according to IMF forecasts from April, while Tajikistan's GDP was forecast to grow 1 %, a sharp decline from the 7.5 per cent seen in 2019.
"These persons are being held like hostages here," said Ms Gulnara Bobodjanova, a legal professional who works at the Civic Assistance charity in Moscow.
"The only method out of the situation is to open the border, regardless if it's just in a single direction, so that people who would like to leave can go."
