15 October 2008
Addis Ababa — Kenyan police have arrested 65 Ethiopian youths along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway in a suspected human trafficking syndicate, KBC reported yesterday.
The immigrants who had no proper identification papers were packed in a 20 feet container when police intercepted the trailer carrying the container at the Konza road block at Kyumbi in Machakos district, the report said.
"Police had been tipped about the illegal consignment by a member of the public who heard the yells of the aliens as they hit the walls of the container on the bumpy road." The youths were picked by the trailer at Lunga Lunga in Nairobi's industrial area and were to be dropped at Mariakani near Mombasa town, the report cited Machakos police Boss Patrick Lumumba as having said.
"They were packed like sardines amid the sweltering heat and they could be heard screaming inside the container meant for transit goods every time the trailer hit a bumpy part of the road", the police boss was quoted in the report as saying.
"One of the youths who could only communicate in broken English told the press that his name is Mesfin Markos, 23 and that they wanted to go to South Africa to seek employment and escape from poverty in their homeland." He said after crossing the Kenyan border in Moyale they travelled by bus to Nairobi where they stayed in a hotel for three days.
"He said all the 65 youths whose ages range from 20 to 28 were from Southern Ethiopia and were all jobless." The immigrants claimed they had not had a decent meal during the journey.
Most of them were in a pitiful state when they were pulled out of the container as several had fainted due to heat while others had soiled themselves.
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