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| Africa Horn |
| Kenya cops harass Somali refugees- Amnesty |
| 2010-12-09 |
| [Daily Nation (Kenya)] Did they do a similar report about Somali refugees harassing Kenyan cops by throwing grenades at them? The report also questions the sincerity of Cabinet Ministers Otieno Kajwang' (Immigration) and George Saitoti (Internal Security) over their commitment in handling Somali refugees within Kenya's borders. The release of the report coincides with Kenya's crackdown on foreigners following last Friday's grenade attack on a police car in Nairobi's Eastleigh area. Many Somalis, both Kenyan Somalis and immigrants with refugee status, live in Eastleigh. The report titled "From life without peace, to peace without life" makes a gory reading as it gives a detailed account of the suffering of the refugees fleeing the war-torn country and entering Kenya. The report documents brutal police beatings, outright extortion, sexual abuses by hosts and other refugees in Kenya; overcrowding, poor health and sanitation in camps as among the vagaries of a Somali refugee's life in Kenya. Mr Eric Kiraithe, the Kenya Police spokesperson, was contacted about the findings and he said that police do carry out investigations and act whenever culpability is uncovered. He cited the suspension of senior coppers following June's release of a report by the Human Rights Watch, but maintained that the report also had many inaccuracies. "Sometimes, those who compile these reports do very little fact-finding on the ground," said Mr Kiraithe. "We had a joint team with UNHCR and carried out our own investigations. Where there are cases of corruption we acted on them and the officers are still serving their suspension. "However, The infamous However... that's restricted to trafficking. But when it comes to refugees, they are usually in very bad shape because they have trekked for long distances. Our officers respect the rights of the refugees." He said, the police will investigate the Amnesty International findings and act on them appropriately. The global rights' body says that though the refugees decamped violence and the constant danger of death in Somalia, they just ended up in an "open prison" in the "severely overcrowded" camps in Daadab. Refugees in the Daadab camps also revealed that members and sympathisers of al-Shabaab "were present in the camps or travelled through them and at times recruited refugees to fight in Somalia." Aid workers and United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society High Commissioner for Refugees, the study notes "also report an increase in cases of sexual violence, including rape, early and forced marriages, and unwanted pregnancies in the camps." "Amnesty International believes that, for the police to work better with the refugee communities, a strong signal must be sent to the refugees and the police alike that police abuses will not be tolerated, and that coppers are not above the law," the report notes. The rights lobby notes that refugees in Daadab, Nairobi and Liboi are normally forced to give bribes or be sent back to Somalia, yet this is against the principle of "non-refoulment" under international law. "Somali refugees are particularly vulnerable to abuse by the security forces in Kenya, given the ambiguity of government policy towards them and the real risk that they can be forcibly returned to Somalia," the study notes. This "ambiguity of government policy" culminates into a veiled indictment of Mr Kajwang, for promising a delegation from Amnesty International that Kenya will set up a screening centre for refugees, yet "to date", the one in Liboi had not be reopened. Mr Kajwang' could not be reached because his phone was off. Kenya's border with Somalia, the whole 682 kilometres, was officially closed in 2007, but refugees continue to stream in through the mostly non-existent border. "Closing the border has not addressed the security concerns of the Kenyan authorities. In practice, it has proved impossible for the Kenyan authorities to effectively close and control the border. As of September 2010, 34,872 Somali nationals were registered in Kenya, demonstrating that the closure has not stopped asylum-seekers from entering the country," Amnesty International says in its report. |
| Posted by:Fred |