Sixteen ‘Eritreans’ now at Kakuma camp

Sixteen people who refused to be flown to Asmara from Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), finally agreed to go to Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya. “The people are no longer here, they left on Tuesday evening for Kakuma refugee camp,” Priscilla Lagat, customer relations officer at the airport, confirmed today. “They discovered that it would be to their advantage to present themselves at the camp, to at least get the refugee status protection,” IOM’s Logistics Assistant Fredrick Omondi told IRIN. “This would enable to them make the next move which could be seeking resttlement.” The 16 had decided to go on a hunger strike, insisting that Kenya’s government grant them political asylum, and that they be accomodated in Nairobi and not in refugee camps. “The situation was tricky because one cannot be given asylum twice,” Omondi explained. “Kenya does not share a boundary with Eritrea and these people did not qualify for asylum. What the government of Kenya did was on an exceptional basis,” he explained. “The whole problem was very complex and delicate.”

Meanwhile, Kidane Woldeyesus, an official at the Eritrean embassy in Nairobi, denied that Eritrean returnees were likely to be forcibly conscripted.”We cannot force anybody into the force because we would be making potential enemies in the force,” he told IRIN. “We are not short of human resources, even if we were to conscript more, we would go for patriots who would voluntarily come up.” The 16 said they are not Eritreans so “we were relieved”, Woldeyesus said.