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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Fri Jan 07 2011 - 15:53:23 EST
Provincial
Police grapple with influx of poor Ethiopians[image: Illegal immigrants from
Ethiopia crowded inside a single room at a house in Ngong Town on June 23,
2010. Photo/FILE]
Illegal immigrants from Ethiopia crowded inside a single room at a house in
Ngong Town on June 23, 2010. Photo/FILE
By JOHN NJAGI jnjagi@ke.nationmedia.comPosted Thursday, January
6 2011 at 19:54
For quite a long while, Kenya has become a haven for illegal Ethiopian
immigrants fleeing their country in search of a better life.
The immigrants are entering Kenyan in droves, presenting a security and
logistical nightmare for security agents.
These foreigners access the country through the porous border in Moyale and
proceed to northern and upper eastern Kenya.
Tales of Ethiopians being
arrested,<http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/110%20illegal%20immigrants%20from%20Ethiopia%20seized/-/1070/1073282/-/g6hwu7/-/index.html>prosecuted
and others repatriated in their hundreds have become legion in
Moyale and Isiolo.
The *Nation* has learnt that the Ethiopians, mostly youths, are fleeing
their country for South Africa, where they hope to find jobs.
It is believed those who have successfully used this illegal route and
landed in South Africa, are urging their countrymen to try their luck,
creating a frenzy among the jobless and poverty-stricken Ethiopians to join
the band wagon.
Since Ethiopia is a landlocked country, the immigrants prefer Kenya, its
southern neighbour and not Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west and
Djibouti and Somalia to the east, some of which are traditionally hostile.
The “smuggling” of Ethiopians is lucrative and has become a cash cow for
“hired” transporters and other brokers who arrange transport, safe houses
and other logistics until the immigrants reach their destination.
*End the menace*
Kenyans involved in this illegality, have, however, not been left out by
police in their efforts to end the menace, as they are often charged
alongside the immigrants. Smuggling of humans is outlawed locally and
internationally.
The UN outlaws any form of human exploitation for financial gain either
through forced labour or sexually.
Like human trafficking, people smuggling is listed as a serious crime and
differs with the former where people, especially women and children, are
sold for sexual or labour exploitation.
The latter involves people voluntarily paying a smugglers to covertly
transport them from one location to another.
In this case, mostly young Ethiopians are said to sell family property or
personal belongings and pay smugglers to take them to preferred destinations
where they hope to land jobs and get financial breakthrough.
Security officials are struggling to seal the loopholes used by the
immigrants and have identified areas such as Forore and Turkana along the
porous Ethiopia-Kenya border in Moyale District as the most notorious.
The foreigners are said to avoid the lengthy screening process at designated
border entry points where the government also puts a cap on the number of
Ethiopians allowed into the country at a particular time.
“Traditionally, the country does not require Ethiopians to acquire visas
when visiting the country, but most of them enter the country illegally to
beat rigorous immigration requirements,” says Upper Eastern deputy
provincial commissioner Wenslas Ong’wayo.
To make it to Nairobi, where they travel by road to Tanzania, Mozambique and
eventually South Africa, the illegal immigrants and their transporters have
devised ways to evade police road blocks.
*Evade road blocks*
Mr Ong’wayo says despite the fact that there are about five road blocks from
Moyale to Isiolo, the Ethiopians still manage to evade them by trekking for
several kilometres through the bushes and boarding a vehicle where there are
no police barriers.
But despite the transporters’ ingenuity to escape police traps, security
officers say they have arrested an estimated 2,000 Ethiopian immigrants
since the beginning of the year.
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