Kenyan police abusing refugees, report says

A human rights watchdog says Kenyan police at the Somali border and in nearby refugee camps are abusing asylum seekers and refugees fleeing Somalia. A Human Rights Watch report says the Kenyan government should immediately rein in its police and press for an end to the abuse.

It said documents highlight widespread police extortion of asylum seekers trying to reach three camps near the Kenyan town of Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee settlement.

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Gerry Simpson, Human Rights Watch, Nairobi

Billie O'Kadameri

Asylum seekers are intercepted as they cross from Somalia into Kenya. Police stop them in their vehicles that are driven by smugglers and ask for money.

"If they pay they're allowed to continue, but if they don't pay they face a series of serious abuses," said lead author of the report Gerry Simpson. "which include violence including rape, whipping, kicking and beating. Some are deported back to Somalia, many are unlawfully arrested and detained in degrading conditions. All of them face extortion."

Simpson said he knows the problem it goes back at least to March 2009 when HRW highlighted similar abuses in a report on the humanitarian crisis there. But he said the Kenyan government had responded to the report by setting up a special investigation committee.

In 2007, Kenya closed border with Somalia, and at the same time it shut a transit centre where refugees could seek asylum and be safely transported to camps by the United Natons

"The police are now free to behave as they wish in that area," said Simpson. "That is why our number one recommendation for the government is to open a new refugee screening centre in the town of Liboi which is 15 km from the Somali border inside Kneya and the government has indicated to us that they are working on such a centre."