Red flag over Sh90m human smuggling racket through Kenya-Ethiopia border

More than Sh90 million is illegally earned by human traffickers monthly by smuggling Ethiopian nationals across the Kenya–Ethiopia border with the prospect of sending them by road to South Africa. On average, 30 Ethiopians illegally cross the border daily in a racket that has been going on for the last 15 years.

But in many cases the victims end up being arrested, jailed and deported back to Ethiopia while in worse situations they end up in the jungles of East and Central Africa where they are abandoned after authorities discover the human trafficking racket and the smugglers escape.

According to a report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) titled, “In pursuit of the Southern Dreams: Victims of Necessity:” the Ethiopian Embassy in South Africa estimates that approximately 45,000 to 50,000 of their countrymen have made South Africa their home. The report says the numbers are increasing every week due to the influx of new arrivals, primarily from large-scale, successful smuggling operations from Ethiopia.

Ninety five per cent or more of these Ethiopian arrivals enter South Africa through irregular means and regularise their situations rapidly through its asylum policies. This figure provides some indication of the size of the business of smuggling Ethiopians alone (and in one geographical direction) in the last two decades. The IOM report reads in part: “Every trick is happening. Everyone is taking advantage of the innocence and desperation of the Ethiopians. No one is arrested because no one wants to kill the golden goose. Sixty per cent to 70 per cent of all wealth in Moyale comes from this business. The anti-corruption office should pay a visit to Moyale. ... Even an angel would become corrupt in Moyale, Marsabit County," says the report.

No guarantee

Brokers and/or agents charge the prospective immigrants between Sh70,000 to Sh300,000 before leaving Ethiopia. But what they are not told is the money is not a guarantee to safe arrival to their destination (South Africa). The money is usually paid through bank accounts owned by the brokers, after which it is withdrawn and wired to different brokers in other countries to facilitate the movement of the migrants. In Kenya, it is said people have started using money transfer.

The report claims that although the system has revolutionised rural transfer and banking habits, to deal with the limitation on quantity, some unscrupulous people have different SIM cards for their mobile phone. The would-be immigrants raise money through sale of property, livestock, and farmland, while some immigrants are financially supported by compatriots who have prospered in South Africa.

The human smuggling syndicate allegedly involves a group of notorious human traffickers, consisting of Government officials from both Ethiopia and Kenya. The victims and their relatives pay considerable amounts of money to the racketeers so that they can be shipped to South Africa where they expect a better life.

One of the latest incidents took place on October 19 this year, when 57 Ethiopians were arrested from a house in Kahawa Wendani, Nairobi, days after they had arrived. The victims were said to be in the country illegally and did not have traveling documents. They told police they had been brought there by an agent and were headed for South Africa. They were all taken to Kasarani Police Station where they were questioned and taken to court. A day earlier, 15 other illegal aliens were arrested in Muranga area after a salon car they were traveling in was involved in an accident. One of them died while the rest were arrested.

And on August 23 this year police officers nabbed a group of 71 Ethiopians on board a lorry along the Banane-Garissa Road, ten kilometres from Balambala Sub-county in Garissa County. They were charged at a Garissa court and slapped with a fine of Sh20,000 each or six month jail term in default. In the same court the truck driver and the smuggler were charged for aiding in the smuggling of foreigners into the country. Two weeks earlier, 73 other Ethiopians were arrested in Balambala after the lorry they were traveling in was involved in an accident. They were also charged at Garissa Court, however, the driver and the trafficker managed to escape after the accident.

Men and women between 16-29 years of age, from the southern parts of Ethiopia are regularly smuggled through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique before they finally find their way into South Africa. Investigations by The Standard on Sunday - supported by the Africa Centre for Open Governance Investigative Journalism Fellowship Programme – reveal the victims of human smuggling are largely from the communities of Kembata and Adiya from Hossana and Debu regions of Ethiopia. Although the data on the true extent of trafficking is contested by academics and human rights practitioners, in terms of global trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime stated in 2008 that, “some 2.5 million people throughout the world are at any given time recruited, entrapped, transported and exploited”.

The International Labour Organisation’s 2008 report on the regional distribution of trafficked forced labour estimates that 130,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa are coerced in a form of modern day slavery, and that 44 per cent of the global economic exploitation of trafficked people is male.

Ethiopia is made up of more than 80 tribes, but majority of those who desperately clamour to be smuggled to South Africa (and are willing to pay heavily to be smuggled) are those from the Kembata and Gurage communities, from the southern part of the country.

Hossana is one of the smallest regions in Ethiopia. It is about 15,000 square kilometres with a population of about 10 million people. Due to land pressure, relatively high unemployment among the younger population and widespread poverty the region is the prime source of people struggling to move out in search of better prospects. To them, South Africa is the ideal place to move to because of the successful stories of Ethiopians who have settled there. Siyu Sulitu, a 20-year-old Ethiopian national from Hossana is now serving a six-month jail term in a Moyale prison after his journey to South African was aborted. He was arrested by the Kenya police with 68 others in August, while hiding in an abandoned house in Moyale’s Sessi Village.

The police had got a tip off from members of the public who were concerned that unknown people were staying in the house, which was empty following clashes between Borana and Gabra communities in Marsabit County. They were on transit to South Africa where he and his colleagues were told of great opportunities.

Notorious brokers

‘’I did menial jobs over a period of five years to raise Sh50,000 in order to be smuggled to South Africa through Kenya,’’ he told this writer in an interview at Moyale GK Prison. Twenty five-year-old Galaga Kabaya, another Ethiopian in a Kenyan prison says in mitigation in a Moyale court before he was sentenced to six months that those seeking to be smuggled do so in order to join their well-off relatives and friends in South Africa.

Despite the arrests and hardship on the way, they keep on making attempts to migrate to South Africa.

There are many Ethiopians doing well in South Africa. This group contributes money to pay for their relatives to join them. Through a translator, Amiru claims majority of her relatives who went to South Africa have prospered, which is evidence that “the southern dream” is worth the risk. Moyale Sub-county OCPD Thomas Atuti, says on average, more than 30 young Ethiopians are smuggled daily through Moyale. Many are apprehended while attempting to pass through the county. Mr Atuti says he was aware cartels of human smugglers make great effort to convince Ethiopian youth of the fortunes to be made in South Africa. According to him, the youth are hardly aware of the dangers they are likely to confront.

They make the youth believe that life is rosy once they get out of their country. In September this year alone, the OCPD notes that, more than 130 Ethiopians who were being smuggled to South Africa through the country were intercepted at different areas of Moyale Sub-county.

“They are not refugees running away from either war or political persecution but young men out to be smuggled to distant foreign lands to seek better living standards,’’ said the official.

A senior Resident Magistrate in Moyale, Vincent Atek said those being smuggled to South Africa are mainly victims of sweet-talking brokers “who were milking the unsuspecting unemployed youth by brainwashing with promises of quick riches in South Africa.”

“Many of the cases I handle here talk of paying huge amounts of money,” he said. The charges for being taken to South Africa may range between Sh50,000 to Sh150,000 to brokers who usually transact their businesses through mobile phones to avoid being identified by their victims or security agents. Ayano Duba, the Ethiopian Immigration officer in Moyale (Ethiopia) says those falling victims to smuggling are mainly coming from Debu and Kambata.

He said the Ethiopian Government was tracking some notorious brokers who operate inside Ethiopia. “We are zeroing in on some big brokers operating across the borders,” he added.