Hiiraan Online
Saturday January 23, 2016
HARGEISA (HOL) – A local human rights group in northern breakaway region of Somaliland criticized the ongoing crackdown on illegal foreigners, saying that many from the Ethnic Oromo community could be prosecuted back home in Ethiopia.
Police in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital have rounded up hundreds of illegal foreign workers, majority of them Ethnic-Oromo on Tuesday in what appeared to be the start of nationwide crackdown which they said would target foreigners who stay and work illegally in Somaliland.
“The government should stop the mass expulsions. Even the thirty days deadline given by the government is not over.” said Guled Ahmed, the chairperson of Somaliland’s Human Rights Centre in a statement on Thursday.
Hundreds have already been deported back to Ethiopia on Wednesday,officials said.
Mr. Ahmed says that many of the deportees would be in danger if they deported to Ethiopia, taking into account that high number of the deportees are of Oromo people.
Ethiopia has recently started a crackdown of Ethnic Oromo people after protests against the Addis Ababa'S expansion plan that would see government taking over lands owned by Oromo people outside the capital.
“It is worrying that the people are collected from the streets and filled with lorries who are dropping them off the Ethiopian border. There is no system or authorities in the other side of the border who are there to take care of them.” He said.
It’s unclear what prompted the move; however, the development comes after unidentified gunmen have assassinated two Somali-Ethiopians in Hargeisa, which has rarely seen similar incidents.
Some of the foreigners have checked into the immigration department to present their legal papers to the immigration authorities.
It remains unclear whether Ethiopia’s government which maintains warm diplomatic relations with Somaliland was in cahoots with Somaliland authorities on the crackdown.
Somaliland, a breakaway region in northern Somalia has declared a unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, however, no country has so far recognized it as an independent state.