Denver Isaacs
3 December 2008
A SOMALI woman travelling with her two children, apparently fleeing war-torn Congo, was arrested at Hosea Kutako airport last week.
Immigration officials swooped on her at Windhoek's international airport last Tuesday after it was found that she was travelling with counterfeit Irish travel documents.
Numei Eli (33) yesterday told The Namibian that she lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo with her husband and two children aged four and six.
In a brief interview with The Namibian, Eli said she had been trying to escape from Congo, the birthplace of her husband, where forces loyal to Congolese Tutsi rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda are engaged in renewed battles with Rwandan and Hutu militia allies of the government since August.
She said she was approached by two people from Nairobi, Kenya, who promised to help her get out of the country.
These agents apparently arranged the travel documents that resulted in Eli's arrest.
The two agents were said to have been arrested after arriving in Namibia on the same flight, but their fate was still unknown by yesterday.
The Police station commander at Hosea Kutako airport declined to comment on the situation, but sources at the station indicated that Eli had not yet appeared in court on any charges by yesterday, seven days after her arrest.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has been trying to get involved, its executive director Phil Ya Nangoloh said yesterday, but has been hampered by a lack of communication with immigration officers.
The Refugee Administration Commissioner in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Nkrumah Mushelenga, denied reports that the woman and her two children were to be moved to the Osire refugee camp near Otjiwarongo.
"Refugee status is a voluntary status for which a person should voluntary apply for.
We have no mandate to tell a person to go and apply.
The procedure is clear," Mushelenga told The Namibian.
No official information from either the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Ministry of Safety and Security was forthcoming yesterday.
Chief of Immigration Elizabeth Negumbo told The Namibian that she was unaware of Eli's case.
The NSHR yesterday complained about alleged maltreatment of Eli and her children, saying that a Police officer allegedly smacked one of the children with a shoe because he would not stop crying.
"They've told me to tell them the truth and I have from the start.
I need help please, somebody," a crying Eli said yesterday morning.
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