A senior Kenyan police official has termed as ”unfair” accusations by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) that the country’s security forces are ”using” the recent attack on an Israeli tourist hotel to justify a crackdown on refugees living in the capital Nairobi.
In a statement, HRW said Kenyan police had since conducted three large raids and dozens of arbitrary arrests against refugees from Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in several Nairobi suburbs.
According to the statement, the largest group arrest took place on 29 November, in which about 20 police officers began a house-to-house search in the Kawangware slum area, where more than 50 refugees were arrested.
”All were pushed into two waiting trucks, among them Sudanese and Congolese refugees, including children,” the statement said. ”Several other refugees avoided arrests by paying bribes to the police,” it added.
A police representative, King’ori Mwangi, confirmed the arrests, but stressed that the operations had targeted ”foreigners” who entered the country illegally and posed a security threat. He accused HRW of failing to check its ”facts” with either Kenyan authorities or the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ”These are busybodies who don’t see anything good with Kenya,” Mwangi said.
”When it comes to protection, everyone, including refugees, must be protected. But at the end of the day, Kenya is for Kenyans. That is very clear. We will not allow anybody claiming to be a refugee and bombing our cities or smuggling drugs in the country,” Mwangi said.
According to him, the refugees arrested were released as soon as their relatives furnished the police with their residency documents. Others, he said, were released after intervention by the UNHCR, which provided police with proof of their identities.
”If somebody is a foreigner from Somalia or Sudan, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is a refugee. Some are here illegally and sometimes spy [on] and even harm the refugees,” he said. ”I don’t think there was a massive crackdown on foreigners in Kenya [like those such] as we have previously conducted when such a thing happens,” he added.
UNHCR confirmed the arrests, saying it had intervened to secure the release of refugees who were officially allowed to be in the country, but who had not been in possession of their documents at the time of arrest.
Emmanuel Nyabera, the UNHCR information officer for Kenya, said on Monday that the released refugees included 54 Sudanese, three Congolese, and two children.
The refugee agency has already facilitated the transfer of 22 of those released to the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya. However, six individuals who were of concern to the refugee agency had been charged in court, he added.
”We are aware of a number of arrests made during that week. We have already intervened in some cases and they were released. I can’t really say there has been victimisation,” Nyabera said.
Nyabera, however, stressed that UNHCR was ”more comfortable” taking care of refugees within camps in accordance with the government policy on refugees, as opposed to urban areas. Under Kenyan law, refugees must stay within designated UNHCR camps, from where they can easily access relief supplies and medical treatment under the UNHCR. – IRIN