NAIROBI, Kenya, June 17, (Mareeg) —Human Rights Watch group said Thursday that Kenyan police are raping, beating and abusing rights of Somali refugees fleeing the violence in their country.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday it spoke with victims of women who said police officers had raped them after
“A married Somali woman with four children, including a 12-day-old baby entered Kenya near Liboi around February 15, 2010 on foot, together with around 25 men, women, and children,” the report said.
“Suddenly we saw ten Kenyan police officers. They had long guns and were wearing green uniforms. When they saw us they shot in the air. Everybody started running, but I had my baby so I could not run. Three of them stopped me. I told them I had a 12-day-old baby and asked them to leave me alone. They ignored me and one of them kicked me on the right side. I fell over with my baby. Then he raped me, with my baby on the ground close by. Then one of the other two men raped me. The third man stood close by. When they finished, they let me go. I grabbed my baby and ran after the others.63,” a Somali refugee woman told Human Rights Watch, according to the report.
The report argues that the "organized nature of the police's extortion racket and abuses" is the direct result of Kenya's three-year closure of its border with Somalia.
The report says Kenyan police in the border area between Liboi and the camps arrest Somali asylum seekers, usually after they have failed to hand over money. Refugees told Human Rights Watch that police told them they were under arrest because they had “illegally entered Kenya” or were “illegally in Kenya.”
The report also says “Kenya has adopted an informal encampment policy for most refugees in Kenya, restricting their movement to the limited confines of refugee camps. Because the policy has never been justified and formalized in specific legal terms, it violates international human rights and refugee law guarantees of refugees’ right to freely move in their country of refuge unless certain specific conditions are met.”
In the end of the report, Human Rights Watch recommended that the government of Kenya take many measures including instructing police officers in the border areas to immediately stop arresting and detaining asylum seekers as they cross the border, investigate senior officers responsible for unlawfully arresting and detaining asylum seekers and discipline or charge any engaged in such crimes, and also investigate all incidents of refoulement where Kenyan police officers or soldiers are known to have forcibly returned refugees or asylum seekers to Somalia and take appropriate disciplinary action.
Mareeg Online.
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