{"id":127748,"date":"2021-06-07T16:02:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T14:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=127748"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:40","slug":"corona-science-when-you-are-a-migrant-hearts-and-thoughts-are-torn-apart-between-two-different-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/06\/07\/corona-science-when-you-are-a-migrant-hearts-and-thoughts-are-torn-apart-between-two-different-places\/","title":{"rendered":"Corona science: \u2018When you are a migrant, hearts and thoughts are torn apart between two different places\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen the schools were closed, some parents were still taking their kids to school, two or three days after the schools had shut down.\u201d Together with her team, Zemzem Shigute Shuka researches the experiences of recent Habesha migrants to the Netherlands during Covid-19 and their findings were alarming.<\/p>\n

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Zemzem Shigute Shuka<\/span><\/p>

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Habesha refers to people of Ethiopian and Eritrean heritage. \u201cMigrants and asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Eritrea comprise a substantial proportion of the recent influx of East African migrants to the Netherlands,\u201d Zemzem Shigute Shuka, assistant professor in Global Health and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies explains. Over 15,000 people of Ethiopian descent and over 20,000 people of Eritrean descent are reported to live in the Netherlands. \u201cThere are different reasons for why they are coming here but it mainly has to do with disputes between bordering nations in Ethiopia and escaping recruitment in Eritrea\u2019s military service. Of course, we don\u2019t have to forget about the economic reasons: searching for a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vulnerable<\/h2>

The measures for the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic affected different segments of society in different ways. At the beginning of the pandemic, Shuka and her team were having informal conversations with community members from Ethiopia and Eritrea that live in The Hague. \u201cDuring these conversations, we learned about the specific vulnerabilities that these community members were facing concerning the lack of access to information and understanding the language. We also learned that some community members lost their jobs and didn\u2019t know how to go about that. You can also imagine how panic-inducing it must be for a family with no computer or only one computer for three kids with online education.\u201d<\/p>\n

After these conversations, they felt the need to do systematic research. \u201cOf course we were having these conversations, but the situation also needed to be studied systematically to make policy recommendations or draw lessons for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lack of communication<\/h2>\n\t
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