FEBRUARY 2/2002

CORRUPTION OF UNHCR OFFICIALS IN KENYA:SOCEPP VINDICATED

The UNHCR has finally been formed to admit that its officials in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, are indeed corrupt and acting against the interests of the refugees much as SOCEPP had been claiming over the years. The UNHCR had in the past denied that its officers in Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti are corrupt and act many times in collusion with the EPRDF authorities in Ethiopia.

The scandal in Kenya involves the extortion of money from refugees (thousands of dollars are involved ) to allow the refugees to get the chance to resettle in Third Countries. Dozens have been involved in the illegal act and are now accused publicly for it. In fact, this is the tip of the iceberg. In Kenya as well as In the Sudan and Djibouti the UNHCR officials have not only failed to protect the rights of the refugees but actively collided with the EPRDF which has sought to have the refugees denied asylum rights, harassed or deported. The recent fate of Ethiopian university students who fled to Kenya and Djibouti (and have received no proper attention or protection) is a case in point. When the EPRDF sent its assassin to Nairobi to murder dissidents Jattene Ali and Afeworki Alemseged not only did the UNHCR desist from protesting against the act, but it had as the time as head of its office in Nairobi an Eritrean lady who politically fully supported the EPRDF and harassed the refugees.

 The withdrawal of the refugee status from hundreds of Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan is also another example of the failings and illegal actions of the UNHCR. A month ago too, many Ethiopian refugees were rounded up in Khartoum and thrown into jails and harassed without the UNHCR raising a whimper of protest. All over the region (including across the Red Sea in Yemen), Ethiopian refugees had been betrayed, abandoned by the UNHCR.

 The UNHCR has to clean its house all over the region as SOCEPP had tried to point out over the years. Ethiopian refugees need and deserve protection.

SOCEPP