Watch: Workers flee COVID-19 lockdown at China's biggest iPhone factory

Beijing: A large number of migrant workers have been fleeing back to their hometowns from Apple’s largest iPhone assembly factory in China’s Zhengzhou, amidst a lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak.

In videos going viral on social media, several people can be seen jumping a fence outside the plant, owned by manufacturer Foxconn, in Zhengzhou. Meanwhile, it is still not clear how many cases of COVID-19 have been identified at the factory.

While sharing few videos on Twitter, Stephen McDonell, BBC’s correspondent in China wrote, “Workers have broken out of Apple’s largest assembly site, escaping the Zero Covid lockdown at Foxconn in Zhengzhou. After sneaking out, they’re walking to hometowns more than 100 kilometers away to beat the Covid app measures designed to control people and stop this. China”.

Workers have broken out of #Apple’s largest assembly site, escaping the Zero #Covid lockdown at Foxconn in #Zhengzhou. After sneaking out, they’re walking to home towns more than 100 kilometres away to beat the Covid app measures designed to control people and stop this. #China pic.twitter.com/NHjOjclAyU

— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) October 30, 2022

In another post, McDonell shared how some of the employees were forced to “walk to hometowns some more than 100 kilometres away.”

“So they may think Zero #Covid is going great but here are more of the Foxconn workers who’ve broken out of Apple’s largest assembly site in #Zhengzhou to escape a Zero #Covid lockdown and walk to hometowns some more than 100 kilometres away to beat #China’s phone app restrictions,” he wrote.

Interestingly, the truck drivers, who gave Foxconn workers a ride, were also put in compulsory quarantine, McDonell stated.

Why workers broke out of factory?

“Two big factors which led to the mass exodus of workers from #Foxconn: rumours going crazy about how they were going to be treated under #Covid management and incredible widespread ignorance about the #Coronavirus as a disease,” the BBC correspondent wrote in a series of posts on Twitter.

Another rumour which he highlighted was that the workers thought that the Chinese Army was going to impose a giant “living with Covid” experiment in that part of Zhengzhou.

(With inputs from agencies)

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