By David Malingha Doya
The United Nations Refugee Agency appealed for access to Somali refugees and asylum seekers who have been detained by Kenyan authorities as part of an investigation into involvement in bombing threats and attacks.
Police have made a “wave of arrests” since last week in raids targeting the ethnic-Somali district known as Eastleigh in the capital, Nairobi, where some of the attacks took place, UNHCR said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. The agency is seeking to meet the detainees, who are being held at a sports stadium and police stations, in order to identify them and, in appropriate cases, work toward their release, it said.
Kenyan authorities must “uphold the rights of all those arrested and treat them in a humane and non-discriminatory manner,” it said. Of the 550,980 refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya, 50,800, mostly Somalis, live in Nairobi, UNHCR said.
An estimated 4,000 people have been arrested in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa and the police operation will be extended to other parts of the country, the Daily Nation reported today, citing Interior Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku. Some people have been released and while others were charged in court, the newspaper cited Ole Lenku as saying.
Kenya has been hit by increasing gun and bomb attacks since deploying its soldiers in neighboring Somaliain 2011 to battle the al-Qaeda-associated al-Shabaab militia.
Gunmen killed six worshipers in an attack on a church near Mombasa on March 23, while a triple explosion in Eastleigh on March 31 killed at least six people. In the deadliest incident, at least 67 people were killed in September when gunmen linked to al-Shabaab stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi.
Source: Bloomberg
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