Somalis in Kenya find themselves under scrutiny

[Murax]

Somalis in Kenya find themselves under scrutiny

Several Somali refugees in Eastleigh told IRIN they felt unfairly targeted by the police (Photo: Carolina Montenegro/ IRIN)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
Friday, November 04, 2011



Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya— In Nairobi's "LittleMogadishu" neighborhood, paranoia drifts in the air, mingling with cooking smells and the stink of open drains.

"I'm living in a world of fear," says Ahmed Ali Ibrahim, a tall, skinny 35-year-old Somali refugee with a shrapnel scar under his skull cap. "I can't walk about freely."

Ibrahim says he fled his homeland for Kenya, seeking safety after being wounded last year in a grenade attack on African Union peacekeepers by the Shabab, the Somali militant group linked to Al Qaeda.

But now that Kenya has sent troops across the border to battle the Shabab in southern Somalia, the thousands of war-scarred, jobless refugees like Ibrahim are seen by many Kenyans as an enemy within: cousins and friends of pirates and terrorists.

"It's hard to distinguish who is who, and these people are amongst us," George Mwangi says, sitting on a shady city corner. "You cannot distinguish who is a right person and who is a wrong person to be here."

Two terrorist grenade attacks have rocked Nairobi since Kenya's invasion, a long-planned assault that was launched after the Shabab kidnapped foreigners from Kenya's northern tourist archipelago of Lamu and from a refugee camp for Somalis. The attacks, along with the Shabab's subsequent threat to unleash suicide bombings, could ignite the combustible mistrust between Kenyans and the immigrant Somalis in their midst.

The exodus from Somalia's famine was already nurturing a backlash. In addition to the vibrant immigrants of Little Mogadishu, formally known as Eastleigh, there are about 500,000 famine refugees in northern Kenya, an influx that leads to a growing refrain that Kenya has courted danger by letting in so many Somalis.

"Definitely," said Daniel Mulum, 30, an accountant. "We are in fear of being attacked."

A columnist for the Standard newspaper, Njoroge Kinuthia, wrote recently of a weekend incident in which two Somalis boarded a crowded Nairobi commuter minibus only to see the other passengers get off.

Rahma Abukar, 30, an Eastleigh cafe owner who fled the fighting in Mogadishu four years ago with her sisters and five children, has felt that sting of suspicion. "It happens every day, when we're buying food at the shops," she says, as she keeps an eye on her gas burner with its pots of simmering spaghetti and rice.

Eastleigh is a heady mix of throbbing street markets and smart new multistory hotels, what Mogadishu might have looked like if not for two ruinous decades of clan violence and the rise of the Shabab. The hotels and malls rouse jealousy from rival Kenyan businessmen, who complain that the money must have come from the piracy that has made Somalia infamous.

Kenyan politicians are warning citizens to "be vigilant" and report "suspicious characters."

"Currently, recruitment is going on, but it's being done in secret," says Muslim cleric Sheik Juma Ngao of Mombasa, who warns that extremist clerics have long been recruiting young men to fight in Somalia. Now they have evidence to point to: the chilling smile of Elgiva Bwire Oliacha, 28, who pleaded guilty to planning last week's grenade attacks and of being a member of the Shabab.

Oliacha, who converted to Islam in 2005, said he was "happy" about what he had done. Now known as Mohammed Seif, he joined the Shabab, got training in Somalia and returned to Kenya in August.

Critics say Kenya's tolerance of police harassing and extorting money from Somalis has bred resentment and alienation that could be easily exploited by Islamist extremists seeking recruits. On Eastleigh's streets, women selling khat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed relentlessly by many Somalis, say prices have fallen by 50% recently because demand has declined since police raids in the neighborhood.

Shopkeeper Abdi Nasir Mohammed, 24, says he was forced to pay a $40 bribe demanded by police after a raid several days ago in which they arrested a refugee he was sheltering.

"They were arresting people indiscriminately," Mohammed says. "They ask, 'Do you have Kenyan ID?' If you say 'Yes' or 'No', they kick you and throw you into the police van. On the way to the police camp, they ask if you are able to pay some money.

"As much as I support the elimination of Al Shabab," he said, "I'm against the profiling of all Somalis as terrorists or Al Shabab."

[The_Emperior5]

bantus targeting Somalis

[qoraxeey]

they can always move back to somalia .. if kenya doesnt suit them

[AbdiWahab252]

They ain't seen nothing yet until the bodies of 20 kenyans per day start returning home or if there is a major terrorist attack in kenya.

[XaliimoFarax]

they can always move back to somalia .. if kenya doesnt suit them

But the fufus are in Somalia as well.

[ZubeirAwal]

they can always move back to somalia .. if kenya doesnt suit them

Don't you know there's land in kenya in the North East where Somali's traditionally inhabit just like in Somali galbeed?

and Garissa's it's capital city, a pre-dominated Somali one

[qoraxeey]

this report is not from Garissa and other desserts

its from Nairobi

[ZubeirAwal]

this report is not from Garissa and other desserts

its from Nairobi

Well i'm just saying since you said they should move back to Somalia when they have their own traditional inhabited land in North East Kenya

[Advo]

Somalida need to stop being cowards and start demanding respect. Sometimes death is way better than living in constant fear so I say soon when worst comes to worse dust off ur Ak47 and shoot dead any machete wielding ugaali eating jareer on sight.

[qoraxeey]

Well i'm just saying since you said they should move back to Somalia when they have their own traditional inhabited land in North East Kenya

this is not about NFD

this is about nairobi kenya

[ZubeirAwal]

Well i'm just saying since you said they should move back to Somalia when they have their own traditional inhabited land in North East Kenya

this is not about NFD

this is about nairobi kenya

NFD'S in Kenya!

[qoraxeey]

Somalida need to stop being cowards and start demanding respect. Sometimes death is way better than living in constant fear so I say soon when worst comes to worse dust off ur Ak47 and shoot dead any machete wielding ugaali eating jareer on sight. :

advo shut up ... *the ugaali eating jareer* have a right to protect their country

Nairobi is there capital city.. and their policy have to gaurd it

the skinnies can dust of their AK47 in xamar and else where

[Hyperactive]

no one targeting rer NFD but galtida Nairobi qahootiga ko ah. they can move to their country.

[The_Emperior5]

Somalida need to stop being cowards and start demanding respect. Sometimes death is way better than living in constant fear so I say soon when worst comes to worse dust off ur Ak47 and shoot dead any machete wielding ugaali eating jareer on sight.

ADVO is my brother

[qoraxeey]

no one targeting rer NFD but galtida Nairobi qahootiga ko ah. they can move to their country.

Sheikh Hyper

Nin caqli leeh