A Kenyan lawyer battling cancer has on Tuesday, June 11, issued a demand letter to the Belgian government over a withheld passport.
According to the lawyer, the Kingdom is in possession of her husband's passport and has declined to issue him a visa to accompany his family in Belgium.
The Kenyan lawyer is currently domiciled in Belgium and receiving treatment at a facility within the Kingdom.
Further, the lawyer, through her representing attorneys, issued the demand letter to the Embassy stating that the government had withheld the passport despite a request by the family to have express processing of the visa.
The lawyer further explained that she had paid for the express service to expedite the process of having her husband and children join her in the country.
According to the demand letter seen by Kenyans.co.ke, the family of the lawyer elaborated that their children had visas but could not be reunited with their mother since they are minors who could not travel alone.
“While the children have had their Schengen visas processed and ready to travel on previous travels to Europe, they are unable to make the journey, as they are minors of tender years and require the company of their father for the journey,” read the letter in part.
Further, the letter detailed that the children had already been pulled out of school and were losing prime learning time while the processes were pending.
However, the Belgian Government had yet to respond to the demand letter or issue a statement at the time of publication of this article.
Cases of visa denials are not new with victims in certain instances requesting for government intervention to solve the crisis.
In April this year, a United States Navy veteran sought President Joe Biden's intervention after his Kenyan wife was denied a visa to relocate to the US.
Speaking during an interview with Common Dreams, an American publication, the veteran, Mark Stancil, lamented that his family had been forced to live separately. He seized the opportunity to ask the Biden administration to grant his wife the visa needed to enable the family to reunite.
