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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Aug 11 2010 - 06:25:12 EDT
Somali Refugees: From the Frying Pan Into the Fire
<http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/africa-mainmenu-2
7/4250-somali-refugees-from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire>
Written by Hussein Moulid Bosh
Wednesday,, 11 August 2010 13:09
As the situation in war-torn Somalia worsens, some governments whose
countries host Somali refugees announced their intention to deport Somalis
to their homeland. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and many human
right groups are opposed to deportation of these refugees, but they are
largely being ignored.
UNHCR issued an urgent appeal to governments everywhere not to forcibly
return people to Somalia, but countries hosting refugees were returning
refugees nonetheless, putting lives at risk. Some countries pay no attention
on those issues.
UNHCR warned governments against forced returns to Somalia in May. But in
June, some 1,000 Somalis were deported from Saudi Arabia. For July, the
total so far of reported forced returns from Saudi Arabia is already
estimated to be close to 2,000 people.
"UNHCR considers such deportations to be incompatible with UNHCR's
guidelines on international protection needs of Somali refugees and asylum
seekers. Given the deadly violence in Mogadishu, UNHCR is urging the Saudi
authorities to refrain from future deportations on humanitarian grounds,"
Fleming said. "We are in dialogue with the Saudi authorities on introducing
a joint screening procedure before decisions on deportations to Mogadishu
are taken. This would be an encouraging measure," she added.
The majority of deportees fled Somalia owing to conflict, indiscriminate
violence, and human rights abuses. Most said they originate from southern
and central Somalia, including Mogadishu.
Most of the deportees are women, including some extremely vulnerable cases,
such as that of a young woman who fled the violence in Somalia in 2007, who
was detained on her way to the market in Saudi Arabia and deported back to
Mogadishu with her two infants.
More than 300,000 out of Somalia's estimated 1.4 million internally
displaced people (IDPs) are sheltering in Mogadishu alone. Most of the
displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in
southern and central Somalia.
In July, the Dutch authorities announced their intention to deport, by
October, at least eight Somalis whose claims for asylum have been rejected.
Returning those people is not just risky, it's a potential death sentence,
the UN refugee agency said.
The government of The Netherlands has signed a Memorandum of Understanding
with the Somali transitional government that supposedly forms the basis for
these returns. The Dutch government is refusing to abide by an order of the
District Court of Amsterdam to make the memorandum public, citing a need to
protect its diplomatic relations with Somalia.
Critics of the plan are making their voices heard. "A piece of paper signed
by the transitional government won't protect people returned forcibly to
Somalia," said Leslie Lefkow, senior Horn of Africa researcher at Human
Rights Watch.
Mogadishu is one of the world's most dangerous places, and the situation in
Somalia has been worsening for some time, with food aid having been
suspended in January by the World Food Programme and fighting being reported
almost daily in the capital, Mogadishu.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) suspended its assistance
for voluntary returns to Somalia in June 2008 owing to concerns about
security.
On June 3, the European Court of Human Rights ordered The Netherlands to
suspend deportation of a Somali asylum seeker to Greece due to concerns that
Greece might forcibly return him to Somalia without a proper review of his
asylum claim, and on June 11 the court also instructed The Netherlands to
suspend the deportation of another Somali to Somalia pending a review of his
case by the court. Under the European Union's Dublin II regulations, the
country where a person first entered the EU is generally held responsible
for examining that person's asylum claim.
"Everyone agrees: there is no reasonable way to return people to the chaos
of Somalia," Lefkow said. "The Dutch government should immediately suspend
all plans to deport Somalis and consider alternative protection measures for
rejected asylum seekers."
The New American interviewed one of the Somali refugees who was deported by
the Yemen authorities.
"I have been deported twice by the Yemeni government in 2009; I took a boat
with more than one hundred Somalis to Yemen when the insurgents started
applying harsh laws (arrest, public flogging, or both)," said Amina Ahmed.
Amina explained how she survived after being sent back to her homeland.
"When I reached Somalia, I was so worried and I asked myself what is next?
But luckily I got a vehicle that was en route to neighboring Kenya."
"For many Somalis, taking the dangerous voyage across the Gulf of Aden to
Yemen is the only option to have a peace of mind from the Al-Shabaab
cruelties. We know it's too risky but what can we do? I saw many Somalis
who perished through this risky journey," Amina added.
Most of the Somali and other foreign immigrants used to sail from the
commercial port town of Bosaso to Yemen, but it was a dangerous trek: People
often lost their lives between Yemen and the Somali coast in the north as
the smugglers many times ordered the people to throw themselves overboard or
just killed them in the middle of the sea.
There are now 600,484 Somali refugees, mainly in Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania, and Uganda, plus 1.4 million Somalis displaced
within the country.
In an interview with The New American, an elderly woman who has lived in
Dadaab refugee's camp for over one decade said her son joined the insurgents
after he was forcible deported by Kenyan security. "My son was arrested by
Kenyan Security and deported back to Somalia in 2009, I don't know if he is
alive or not but I heard some rumors that he joined Islamic movement
Al-shabaab," 65-year-old Sofia Ahmed said.
Terrorist organizations such as al-Shabaab continue to radicalize and
recruit Somali youths and others to train and fight the UN-backed
transitional government.
On March 31, the Kenya security expelled another busload. Those forced back
into Somalia included 33 women and 28 children.
Under the 1969 African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of
the Refugee Problems in Africa, Kenya is obliged not to send refugees back
to situations of generalized violence such as in Somalia.
The deportations also violate the most fundamental principle of refugee law,
the prohibition on refoulement - the forcible return to a place where a
person faces a threat to life or freedom on account of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.
Somalia has been without effective government since 1991 when the regime of
President Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted, since then, various warring
factions have been fighting for control of the country.
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