Amnesty International has released a hard-hitting report with stinging findings on the harassment of Somali refugees by Kenya’s police and soldiers.

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 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 police officers 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, 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 fled 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 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 police officers 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 porous 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.

The rights lobby is also on the neck of Prof Saitoti seeking a report arising from government investigations into allegations of police abuses against refugees. The inquest arose in June 2010 after a report by Human Rights Watch, another international rights body, published findings showing gross harassment of refugees by the police.

The Nation placed calls to Prof Saitoti’s office to respond to the accusations, and it said they’d do so once they get the report.

Amnesty International also noted that sections of Kenya’s Immigration law under which aliens were charged, contradicted both the Kenya Refugees Act and international law.

“The provisions under the Immigration Act contradict Kenya’s Refugee Act of 2006, thereby undermining the latter, which states that “no person claiming to be a refugee within the meaning of section 3 (1) shall merely, by reason of illegal entry be declared a prohibited immigrant, detained or penalized in any way,” the study carried out throughout the year notes.

Under the Immigration Act, entry into the country without a permit is punished with a fine or one year’s imprisonment.

The closure of the border also comes under fresh scrutiny in the report.

“By choosing to close its borders to refugee influxes, Kenya has effectively denied individuals the right to seek asylum and has placed them at risk of continued persecution. In so doing, Kenya has violated its own Refugee Act of 2006, and has abrogated from its obligations under the UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol,” the study notes.

But even with the seeming indictment of the government’s failure to treat refugees humanely, the lobby agrees that Kenya is right to be pre-occupied with threats to national security posed by the refugees, more so, given the real threat of terrorism from the Al Qaeda -backed, Al Shabaab militia.

“However, this does not justify in any way human rights violations against Somali refugees and asylum-seekers on Kenyan soil. The Kenyan authorities are bound by international human rights and refugee law to provide refuge and protection to Somali nationals fleeing persecution and armed conflict, and to ensure that its security forces respect international human rights law at all times,” the report notes.

There’s thus a call to donors and other countries to “press the Kenyan authorities to ensure that its security forces are made accountable for abuses against Somali asylum-seekers and refugees”. These have also been asked to increase the funding to UNHCR.

Meanwhile, all refugees who’ve suffered under the hands of Kenya’s police and soldiers, the rights body recommends, should be compensated.

The government has also been asked to “implement without delay reforms aimed at addressing the long-standing issues of police impunity, including the establishment of a civilian body to investigate complaints filed against the police”.

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Source:- Daily Dation.

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