For the past one year, security forces in Northern Kenya have grappled with illegal Ethiopian and Somali immigrants entering the country.

The Ethiopians, who are the majority, use the country as a transit route in search of greener pastures in places such as South Africa.

The security threat the country has been exposed to following the influx is entry of members of dreaded Oromo Liberation Front militia from Ethiopia.

Kenyan security forces have arrested over 200 in Moyale in the past one year.

However, the Somali who travel in fewer numbers and either use the Modogashe-Garbatula or the Garissa-Mwingi routes pose a more potent threat, particularly due to their link to the al-Shabaab terror group.

Eastern provincial police boss Marcus Ocholla said security officers are always on the lookout for the Somalis because of their link to terrorism.

“Unlike the Ethiopians who use the country as a transit route, the Somalis mean no good; they are a security threat,” he said.

Mr Ocholla said two Somalis were arrested last year with bomb-making materials on the Garissa-Mwingi route, which he described as their favourite when entering Nairobi.

The Kenya Government, according to sources has also spent a tidy sum repatriating suspects found by local courts to be in the country illegally.

However, a crackdown by the security forces has resulted in a lull in the movement of immigrants.

The immigrants use any available means from matatus, to trucks and tractors to make the arduous journey through bush and jungle to finally make it to Nairobi.

Kenyans, who are proving to be masterminds in the trade, arrange for their transportation by road to their destination.

As opposed to human trafficking, the immigrants are transported willingly in a cartel involving locals, hence the crime falls under people smuggling under international law.

Human trafficking, the other crime involving movement of humans is where individuals are forcibly sold for forced labour or sex.

Mr Ocholla said that since the beginning of the year, there have been fewer immigrants mostly from Ethiopia arrested on Kenyan roads.

He said over 100 illegal immigrants and four Kenyans who are accomplices in the trade have been arrested since the beginning of the year.

The promised land

“This year the numbers have been lower probably due to the many arrests that have been made,” he said.

Ethiopians who successfully arrive in South Africa to find jobs in hotels as waiters, entice their friends and kin back home to try their luck and make the trip to “the promised land”.

However, if many of them are arrested and deported to their country, it acts as a deterrent and fewer jobless youth would be willing to take the risk.

To make the trip, the immigrants, mostly from poor backgrounds often sell family property to raise money for transport and upkeep.

Early this year, a group of 10 immigrants were arrested at an accident scene after a truck ferrying onions from Mandera overturned on the Garissa-Nairobi highway near Mwingi, only for the police to discover they were hidden underneath the sacks.

Late last year, more than 20 Ethiopian youths were involved in an accident at Timau, having squeezed into a 14-seater matatu from Isiolo to Nairobi.

In Nyeri, eight illegal immigrants were recently arrested in Makuyu and Karatina.

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Daily Nation

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