Tariku Debela, in jeans, walks carefully through the streets of Eastleigh, Nairobi. Photo by Ebba Abbamurti.
On a warm evening last month, Tariku Debela was walking home from dinner in the immigrant enclave of Eastleigh, Nairobi, when he was jumped by four men who took his phone and more than $200 in cash. Getting mugged is bad enough, but what happened next is seared in Debela’s memory.
Debela is an Oromo political leader residing in Kenya as a refugee. The men who robbed Debela delivered a message in Amharic—a verbal threat from across the border—”side with the Ethiopian government or only death awaits you.”
When Debela decided to flee Ethiopia, after years of brutal political persecution, including torture and imprisonment, he expected to be protected as a refugee in Kenya. Indeed, under international law he is. But, Debela and thousands of other Ethiopian refugees who enter neighboring countries have found themselves still within reach of the Ethiopian state, resulting in mistreatment from local governments and neglect from the international organizations ostensibly meant to protect them.
Amnesty International confirmed from sources on the ground that in early January 2016, Kenyan security forces deported 25 Ethiopian refugees from Kenya. This is disputed by Stanley Mwango, spokesperson for the Kenyan government’s Department of Refugee Affairs, who denies the deportations, telling Okayafrica that “Kenya is not sending away anyone who is legally seeking asylum.”
But Amnesty’s account corresponds to reports from Oromo community leaders in Nairobi that Ethiopian refugees are routinely subject to surveillance, harassment, violence and deportation from Kenyan police and border authorities, who they say work in close collaboration with the Ethiopian government.