Kenya plans handing over Ethiopian defectors to UNHCR

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 3, 2004 (PANA) — The Kenyan Police Monday confirmed they are holding seven Ethiopian soldiers who crossed into Kenya after refusing orders requiring them to fight Eritrean forces in their protracted border dispute.

Police Spokesman Jaspher Ombati said the seven soldiers, who surrendered to the border Police in Moyale in the northern part of Kenya near Ethiopia, are in Police custody and could not be released “due to security concerns”.

The seven Ethiopians, who have been in the custody of the Kenyan Police for the past three weeks since surrendering to avoid going to war with neighbouring Eritrea, were interrogated but could not be returned home.

“They are not suspects but we cannot let them free. Arrangements are being made to hand them over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),” Ombati told PANA in a telephone interview.

“The seven soldiers defied orders and they were to be handed over to the Ethiopian authorities after being interrogated but we decided against that. You can imagine what could happen to them,” he asserted.

Police in Eastern Kenya, who also control the vast northern part of the country, say negotiations are in progress between the UNHCR and the Kenyan government.

Ethiopian opposition party leaders earlier led a demonstration of over 50,000 persons in Addis Ababa, and denounced the outcome of talks over the long-standing border row between the neighbouring countries.

The opposition leaders were quoted as saying Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s pledge to hand over the village of Badme to Eritrea “would add up to the inversion of Ethiopia’s territorial sovereignty.

The United Nations formed an independent border Commission to arbitrate the deep differences between the two nations, which have fought bitter battles over territories on their common border.