A group of Somali asylum seekers have arrived in Zimbabwe after a six-month trek over 4 000km from their Horn of African nation, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The Herald said ”at least” 26 Somalis, including two women, had surrendered to police in Harare on Monday after ”trickling into the country” in smaller groups from Mozambique.
”It remains puzzling how the group found its way deep into the country and up to central Harare, undetected by security forces,” said the newspaper. Its reporter was permitted to interview the refugees who said they had surrendered to the Zimbabwean police because they were starving and exhausted after their journey, which was mainly on foot.
”There is hunger and war in our country and Zimbabwe is safe for us,” the newspaper quoted a group leader as saying.
Somalia has been wracked by clan warfare and lacked a central government since 1991. Zimbabwe, which itself is in deep economic crisis with a looming famine, has in the past taken in asylum seekers from wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, but the trek from Somalia was believed to set a record.
Police Inspector Loveless Rupere said they were taken to a refugee transit camp in the southern suburb of Waterfalls after preliminary processing by Zimbabwean immigration officials.
They had no passports, and the authorities were still considering whether the group was eligible for refugee status, said Rupere.
It was unclear which countries — apart from Mozambique — the Somalis transited and whether they had asked for refuge elsewhere.
In April this year, a group of 42 Somalis applied for asylum in Malawi after a 2 200km trek which lasted two and a half months.
Large numbers of Somalis have escaped their country’s chaos to neighbouring Kenya, but often find they are viewed with resentment and suspicion in that impoverished country. Others attempt a dangerous crossing of the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, hoping to go on from there to Saudi Arabia or even Europe. – Sapa-AP