4 April 2009

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis refugees in Kenya suffer extortion and abuse by corrupt and violent police, a human rights watchdog said on Monday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also accused the Kenyan authorities of forcibly deporting hundreds of asylum seekers trying to reach the camp, according to a new report "From Horror to Hopelessness: Kenya's forgotten Somali Refugee Crisis".

More than quarter of a million refugees live in Dadaab's three overcrowded camps in the arid, poverty-stricken northeast of Kenya -- the world's largest refugee settlement.

Aid agencies expect 100 000 arrivals this year as a tide of Somalis flee an Islamic insurgency waged against the new moderate government in Mogadishu.

"People escaping the violence in Somalia need protection and help, but instead face more danger, abuse and deprivation," the report said.

The two-year Islamic insurgency has killed more than 17 000 civilians, forced more than a million to flee their homes and left a third of the population -- more than three million people -- dependent on emergency food aid.

The pro-al-Qaeda militant group al-Shabaab, which controls large swathes of southern and central Somalia, is the main obstacle for Somalia's new president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is trying to restore peace after 18 years of violence.

Bribes

HRW gathered testimonies from dozens of refugees and documented cases of corrupt police officials routinely demanding cash from Somalis as they entered or moved from the camps to other parts of Kenya.

The Kenyan government closed its porous, desert frontier in January 2007 following the US-backed fall of the Islamic Courts Union group. The United Nations and aid agencies denounced the move at the time as a violation of human rights.

In its report, HRW said it recognised Kenya's legitimate security concerns but said the closure had failed to stem the influx of tens of thousands of refugees and instead given rise to the proliferation of people-smuggling groups.

It said although asylum seekers are paying smugglers up to $500 to ensure they cross safely from Somalia to Dadaab's camps, police corruption is so endemic along the border that the fee does not guarantee safe passage.

"Emboldened by the power over refugees that the border closure has given them, Kenyan police detain the new arrivals, seek bribes -- sometimes using threats and violence including sexual violence -- and deport back to Somalia those unable to pay," the report said.

According to HRW, the Kenyan authorities have forcibly returned hundreds, perhaps thousands of asylum seekers and refugees in a direct breach of international law.

One Somali girl interviewed by HRW told of being beaten by police while detained in a cramped cell without adequate food and sanitation before being returned to the frontier.

"Whenever anyone tried to stand up the police beat them with sticks. When we arrived at the border the police told us to walk across the border and never to come back," said the girl who successfully entered Kenya on her second attempt. -- Reuters