Police in Narok Duka moja area in Narok East have arrested four Ethiopian nationals who were found stranded in the area on Saturday evening.
Speaking to KNA, Narok East Sub-County Police Commander Mr Asher Muthamia Mwenda said members of the public saw the four looking stranded at Oleikarere area at around 7:30 in the evening and alerted the police who took them in for interrogation.
Mr Muthamia said the quartet seemed to have been left in the area by someone who might have promised to smuggle them to a neighbouring country or somewhere else.
“The documents they have are written in Amharic language and the foreigners do not speak English or Kiswahili or any local language,” He said.
Muthamia said they have now handed the foursome to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to get an interpreter and interrogate them before their arraignment to the court on Monday.
The porous border between Kenya and Ethiopia has been said to facilitate the south-bound movement of illegal migrants from Ethiopia through Kenya to South Africa on a 6, 000 kilometre journey using the Trans-African Highway. It’s also believed to be used in smuggling contraband goods into the country.
The media in Kenya is always awash with cases to foreigners mostly from this Northern neighbours who are arrested while being smuggled through Kenya to other countries.
In a 2015 report, Kenya’s National Crime Research Centre revealed that Moyale town in Marsabit County is where smuggling cartels facilitate the illegal crossing of migrants into Kenya through Moyale, Dukana and Forolle in North Horr, Bute in Wajir North and Takaba in Mandera sub-county.
The illegal migrants mostly come from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia with the help of unscrupulous Kenyan officials. But the Kenyan authorities have blamed the vastness of the region and the porous border with Somalia for the runaway influx of foreigners into Kenya through Moyale on Kenya-Ethiopia borders.
In 2019, the Director of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) George Kinoti is on record as having admitted that there exist cartels involved in smuggling these aliens to other countries through Kenya,
“This (human trafficking) is big business for smugglers or traffickers and must be stopped as it is criminal,” Kinoti is quoted saying after 22 Ethiopian national were arrested while being smuggled through Nairobi and noted that the aliens told police they were headed for South Africa for greener pastures.
But refugee rights organizations and aid agencies have blamed poverty in Africa for the rising cases of human trafficking.
By Mabel Keya Shikuku
