Somalis fleeing war are targets in Kenya

Human Rights Watch says rape, extortion and arbitrary detention are widespread, including in United Nations-administered camps.

Somali refugees wait to be registered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees at the Dagahaley camp in Dadaab in north-eastern Kenya.

NAIROBI // Kenyan police near the border with Somalia have been abusing Somali refugees who are fleeing the bloody civil war in their country, a human rights organisation has said. The abuses include beatings, arbitrary detentions, rapes and extortion, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. The Kenyan security force said it will investigate the claims and punish any wrongdoing.

In a 99-page report released on June 17 titled Welcome to Kenya: Police Abuse of Somali Refugees, HRW said that refugees are also targeted inside United Nations-run camps. Some asylum seekers are sent back to the war zone in Somalia against international refugee law. "People fleeing the mayhem in Somalia, the vast majority women and children, are welcomed to Kenya with rape, whippings, beatings, detention, extortion, and summary deportation," said Gerry Simpson, refugee researcher for HRW. "Once in the camps, some refugees face more police violence and the police turn a blind eye to sexual violence by other refugees and local Kenyans."

Thousands of Somalis stream across the porous border each month despite it being officially closed. Many of them use human smugglers to help them reach the refugee complex at Dadaab, 80 kilometres from the border. The three camps at Dadaab, which were originally built to house 90,000 refugees, are overflowing with 300,000 people living in squalid dwellings of sticks and a patchwork of tattered tarpaulin.

Many of the refugees have been in the camps for 20 years since the war began in 1991 when warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre. In the past four years, the Somali war has taken a religious turn. Currently, al Shabab, a violent Islamist insurgent group, is waging a bloody war against the moderate government, which has displaced hundreds of thousands. The Kenyan government officially closed the border in 2007, fearing that insurgents linked to al Qa'eda would cross into the country. But asylum seekers still pour in each day and must run a gauntlet of Kenyan police brutality before reaching the camps, where they are not necessarily safe. Some refugees continue on to Nairobi, the capital, where they face more harassment.

"For more than three years the closed border has benefited no one except corrupt police officers and has led to untold abuses against hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers," said Mr Simpson, the principal author of the report. "Kenya needs to guarantee safe passage and protection to Somalia's vulnerable refugees." Dozens of asylum seekers told HRW that police demanded money and deported or detained, beat, and falsely charged them with unlawful presence if they could not pay. A Kenyan refugee aid worker described the police operation between the border and Garissa, the provincial capital, as "one big money-making machine".

The report also documents how the threat of police interception and related abuses forces most asylum seekers to travel to the camps on small paths away from the main road. There they are also vulnerable to attacks from common criminals, who prey upon them, raping women and stealing the little money they have. Once in the camps, refugees continue to face violence, according to the report. Police have failed to prevent, investigate or prosecute sexual violence against refugee women and girls in the camps by other refugees and Kenyans, creating a culture of impunity and increasing the risk of sexual violence.

In response to the report, George Saitoti, the Kenyan minister for internal security, said that a team is investigating the allegations. "Any unlawful action that may have been taken by a police officer is not a reflection of government policy," he wrote in a letter to HRW. "If any police officer is found guilty of having participated in such atrocities, appropriate action in accordance with the law shall be taken."

Refugees spend years or sometimes decades in the camps along the border with little opportunity to better their lives. Those that try to travel to Nairobi face more harassment by authorities. Kenya has an informal encampment policy, which requires refugees to stay in camps, despite international laws that allow refugees to travel within their country of refuge. For the refugees that make it to Nairobi, life is not much easier. A report earlier this year by a consortium of aid organisations including the International Rescue Committee said that urban refugees are exposed to criminal violence, police abuse and a severe lack of livelihoods.

As the war in Somalia drags on into its third decade and the refugee camps are stretched to capacity, Kenya and the international community are not doing enough to support refugee resettlement in Nairobi, the report said. "Refugees living in Nairobi suffer from a number of acute protection risks that seriously threaten their safety and dignity," the report said. "Despite the protracted refugee situation, local integration or resettlement opportunities remain distant prospects. Thousands of refugees, therefore, have not found effective protection in Nairobi."