Nyasa Times
Monday, April 25, 2011
The group, which has only one woman, was nabbed last week in Nkhata Bay district after illegally sneaking into the country using Lake Malawi. It came by boat from Tanzania.
Police say the 136 aliens were arrested at Kuwiri Forest at Tukombo in the district, where they were hiding after disembarking from the boat, following a tip from the public.
“We got a tip about the move and that two vehicles were on their way from Lilongwe to pick these people. So we rushed there and feigned as if we were part of the deal,” said a police prosecutor Clara Mwafulirwa.
She said when the vehicles, a seven and three tonner, registration numbers KU 3672 and MC 3496 respectively arrived at the scene and packed the illegal foreigners “we tactically diverted the vehicles to our station where we locked them up.”
Appearing before the Nkhata Bay Magistrate Court the illegal foreigners all pleaded guilty to the offence of illegal entry but said they were seeking asylum after escaping from hunger and unrests in their countries.
The court then fined 98 of them K8000 each or in default serve four months jail term while 38 were fined K5000 each or serve three months in prison. They all failed to pay the fines and were sent to Nkhata Bay and Mzuzu Prisons.
Police also said they arrested two Malawian drivers, five Ethiopians and a Congolese national for aiding the foreigners to enter the country using unchartered routes. They were expected to appear before the court.
Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Malawi office has expressed ignorance on the matter saying it is not aware about the arrested foreigners.
UNHCR Assistant Protection Officer Kelvin Sentala however said his office would investigate the authenticity of the arrested foreigners first before taking action.
“We have not received any information to that effect. Nevertheless, the first thing is to find out if they were indeed coming here as asylum seekers. If they are real asylum seekers we will take action in conjunction with the relevant authorities to take them to Dzaleka Refugee camp [Dowa] but if they are not then government has a job to do,” explained Sentala.
The Refugee Act in Section 10 (4), in short stipulates that a person who enters Malawi illegally “for the purpose of seeking asylum as a refugee shall present himself to a competent officer within twenty four hours of his entry or within such longer period as the competent officer may consider acceptable in the circumstances and such person shall not be detained, imprisoned, declared prohibited immigrant or otherwise penalized by reason only of his illegal entry.”
And basing on this Section, the jailed Somalis and Ethiopians may be freed and sent to Dzaleka Refugee Camp because they were arrested before the expiry of the 24hour mark of their entry into the country to present themselves to relevant officers if they were indeed asylum seekers.
However, it will be difficult to tell their colours because recent incidents have indicated that most of these people use Malawi as a route for them to proceed to other Southern African countries particularly South Africa and Botswana.
There are over 11 000 refugees in Malawi from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Unfortunately, most of them have now abandoned their refugee status and have invaded almost every corner of the country engaging in businesses, a development that is annoying small scale Malawian traders, both in the rural and urban areas.—(Reporting by Felie Mzumara, Nyasa Times)
Source: Nyasa Times