Abusing Legitimate Refugees Is Violation of Human Rights and International Conventions

April 7, 2014

OLF statement regarding the Oromo refugees in Kenya

Citizens flee their own countries for different reasons. Some of the causes are short term incidents while others are long term, requiring radical solutions. Natural calamities like drought, flood, earthquake and the like; and man-made causes like civil war, economic and political crises can force people to flee their own countries. Everyone wants to return to one’s own country once the cause for the flight is solved. Of the huge number of the current refugee in the Horn of African countries the Oromo predominates. The majority of them fled their country for none other than a deep-rooted political crisis that cannot be solved overnight. They apparently began this flight, right after the conquest during the last century,to save their lives and human dignity. Thus the Oromos have managed to survive in all the neighbouring countries for a long time. The OLF likes to express its gratitude to the countries that had harboured these refugees for such a long time. However, some developments of the last two decades are worrisome.

After building special relation with the current regime in Ethiopia the neighbouring countries have repeatedly violated the rights of these refugees who are recognized by appropriate UN agencies to be accorded proper protection. The fact that such acts, which have been reported by different human rights agencies, are perpetrated by the security and armed forces of these countries, have spread terror among the refugees.

Out of hundreds of thousands of refugees registered by the UNHCR in Kenya, Oromos constitute a big chunk. Many of such legitimate refugees in general and the Oromo in particular have been constantly maltreated, forcefully returned to the regime that they fled, robbed of their belongings and shockingly harassed. A case in point is an incident on April 5, 2014 when Kenyan armed forces broke into the houses of Oromo refugees beat them up, robbed them of their properties and detained them in mass while many disappeared. No tangible effort of the UNHCR to protect these refugees was observed.

The OLF requests the Kenyan government to immediately halt this recurring vicious abuse of legitimate refugees in general and the Oromo refugees in particular, release those detained, return their robbed properties and provide them the protection they deserve. We implore the concerned UN agencies to pay attention to this ordeal of the Oromo refugees and make sure that they get appropriate protection as well as finding permanent solution to this endless saga.

Victory to the Oromo People!

Oromo Liberation Front

April 7, 2014

Source: Oromo Liberation Front

–Afaan Oromo Version
–English Version