28/01/09 (B483) Shabelle avec VOA : Le haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés demande au Kenya de cesser de refouler les exilés somaliens. UNHCR Tells Kenya to Stop Deporting Somali Asylum Seekers (2 articles en Français et en Anglais)
Somalie / Refoulement par le Gouvernement du Kenya de demandeurs d’asile somaliens.
__________________________________ 1 – OPA
African Press Organization (APO)/ Point de presse quotidien du bureau de la porte-parole du secrétaire général de l’ONU / 27 janvier 2009
Le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (HCR) s’est déclaré profondément préoccupé par le refoulement, organisé par le Gouvernement du Kenya, de demandeurs d’asile somaliens. La semaine dernière, les autorités kényennes ont forcé trois Somaliens, qui avaient traversé la frontière du nord-est pour chercher refuge au Kenya, à quitter le pays.
Les trois personnes avaient pourtant fait toutes les démarches auprès du HCR, qui a recommandé que leur cas soit examiné par les autorités kényennes. Les trois Somaliens font partie des 29 demandeurs d’asile somaliens dont le véhicule a essuyé les tirs d’une patrouille kényenne de contrôle des frontières après que le chauffeur eut, selon les informations, ignoré un ordre qui lui avait été donné de s’arrêter. Le HCR a indiqué que le sort qui a été réservé aux autres 26 passagers n’est pas très clair.
Notant que des cas similaires de retours forcés de réfugiés avaient été portés à son attention au cours de l’année 2008, le HCR appelle le Gouvernement du Kenya à respecter pleinement le principe de non-refoulement consacré dans la Convention de Genève de 1951.
_________________________________ 2 – En Anglais
The U.N. refugee agency accuses Kenya of forcibly deporting asylum seekers and says it must stop.
The UNHCR says the forcible deportation of asylum seekers goes against the principles of the 1951 Geneva Convention, which Kenya has signed.
UNHCR says the last incident occurred on January 16 when Kenyan authorities deported three Somalis who had entered the country along the Liboi border area in northeastern Kenya
U.N. refugee spokesman Ron Redmond says police shot at a vehicle carrying 30 people when the driver refused to stop. He says two men and a woman were wounded. They subsequently were taken about 90 kilometers, to Dadaab, to receive medical attention.
He says the UNHCR does not know what happened to the other 26 Somali passengers.
« In Dadaab, the three wounded were interviewed by UNHCR and said they had fled the fighting in Mogadishu and had come to Kenya to seek asylum, » he said. « UNHCR officially informed the local authorities and requested that they be handed over to the Kenyan Department of Refugee Affairs and UNHCR for further action. However, on January 21, according to hospital officials, six policemen turned up at the Dadaab Health Center, where the three asylum seekers were undergoing medical treatment for their bullet wounds, ordered them into a police van and drove them to the border. »
Redmond says the authorities have confirmed the Somali asylum seekers had been returned to Somalia. He says it is difficult for UNHCR staff to monitor the entire Kenyan-Somalia border, so it does not know how many people were forcibly deported last year.
« We do know that some 60,000 Somalis did enter Kenya last year, » he said. « This is despite the government’s official position that that border is closed. We would just remind all governments that under the 1951 Refugee Convention and under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights people have the right to seek and enjoy asylum in neighboring States and they should not be sent back to danger. »
Redmond says the UNHCR has spoken to the Kenyan authorities on numerous occasions about its breach of the International Refugee Convention and of Kenya’s own Refugees Act. He says Kenya should respect the rights enshrined in these documents-