Kenya: Amnesty Sounds Alarm over Imminent Deportation of Eritrean Refugees

By Staff Writer

NAIROBI---The human rights watchdog Amnesty International warns that a group of seven Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers are at imminent risk of being forcibly returned to Eritrea by the Kenyan authorities. If returned they would be at grave risk of arbitrary detention and torture.

Tsigab Angosom, Mussie Ghebremedhin, Bisrat Keleta, Semere Sahlezghi, Efrem Kiflu, Zeria Gebre and Habtu Kiflay are in detention at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. They have been refused their right to claim asylum and have been told that their deportation is imminent.

The seven arrived at the airport from different places and at different times since the beginning of July. All claimed asylum upon arrival. The immigration services are refusing to let them claim asylum, because all seven arrived in Kenya via other countries rather than directly from Eritrea. Two of the group had previously been recognised as refugees in other countries.

The immigration authorities at the airport had decided on 16 July to deport the group, but they evaded deportation by shouting and fighting with immigration officials. On 18 July they were moved to a transit area in the airport and told that their deportation was imminent. Bisrat Keleta, the only woman, is being held separately from the men.

Asylum-seekers returned to Eritrea are routinely subjected to human rights violations, including incommunicado detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment. One of the group, Tsigab Angosom, has previously been deported to Eritrea from Sudan. He was handed over to the Eritrean authorities in 2007, and was immediately put in detention where he remained for nine months before he escaped and once again fled the country. He was tortured while in detention. His experiences illustrate the risks that all seven face if they are returned to Eritrea.

Amnesty is urging the authorities not to forcibly return the seven asylum-seekers (naming them), or any other refugees or asylum-seekers, to Eritrea, where they would be at risk of torture and other serious human rights violations.