KARONGA, Malawi, December 15 (UNHCR) – A group of men from the Horn of Africa, all young and without dependants, chat among themselves at the reception centre for newly arrived asylum seekers in Malawi. The UN refugee agency knows that these men, if they are like thousands of other arrivals in recent years, will soon disappear as they continue toward their real destination of South Africa.

"It is one of the busiest borders, this northern corridor – everything from up north in Africa passes through here," said B.C. Jumbo, the head of immigration at the Malawi-Tanzania border, who transfers asylum seekers to Karonga reception centre. "When the Somalis and Ethiopians come they always say they are refugees who want to stay in Malawi, but they don't stay long."

"When someone flees a war they should have wives and children, but these are mainly young men."

The situation has created a dilemma for officers of the UNHCR and the host government. While they have clear reasons to suspect the young men are economic migrants rather than refugees fleeing persecution, they have the overriding obligation to provide sanctuary while applications for refugee status are carefully examined.

"The transiting is the biggest problem we have," said Abdulkadir Haji Jama, UNHCR representative in Malawi. "The government says they are being abused – that they have been hosting refugees for years and won't tolerate these people coming and going. But we can't say 'Don't come' and 'Don't give assistance.'"

Refugees are supposed to seek asylum at the first country they reach. They are also not supposed to move from a country where they already have refugee status to another. In reality, asylum seekers from many countries arriving at other African borders – not just Somalis and Ethiopians – have violated both principles. But the level of movement from the Horn of Africa has raised deeper concerns about abuse of the asylum system.

Although the precise method of movement is murky, it appears to be highly organised by human traffickers – from the originating countries through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe into South Africa. Groups of asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa tend to arrive in groups; 40 arrived the day after Jumbo spoke at the border.

Authorities once retrieved a map that showed the road through Malawi to Mozambique, complete with each police roadblock. Tanzania arrested a trafficker who carried both Kenyan and South African passports. Understandably, the traffickers' customers are not speaking.

People merely passing through Malawi toward South Africa, drawn by the lure of the economic powerhouse, are consuming not just time needed for legitimate cases, including other Somalis and Ethiopians who are fleeing persecution. They are also taking material assistance from UNHCR that is needed by real refugees.

UNHCR this year stopped providing free transportation for everyone from the reception centre in Karonga in the north to Luwani refugee camp in the south, only a few kilometres from the border into Mozambique. "It was almost tantamount to collaborating with the traffickers," said Jama.

Most of the asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa disappear soon after arriving in the southern camp. But first they receive food rations and non-food items like cooking sets, blankets and plastic sheeting, which they sell before slipping out of the camp in the middle of the night. The population of Luwani, would be double the current figure of just under 2,500 if all the Somalis and Ethiopians of recent years had remained in the camp.

"Our first challenge is the irregular movement of Ethiopians and Somalis. We register them and then they are gone. They are using us as a transit centre; most of then are going to South Africa," said Martin Mphundulawa, the government's administrator of Luwani camp.

In the area for new arrivals at Luwani, groups of Somalis and Ethiopians are housed in large separate shelters. All maintain they are sincerely seeking asylum in Malawi. But one laughs at the idea of becoming a farmer under the self-sufficiency programme that UNHCR is developing in the camp. Another, after maintaining he is pleased to be in a peaceful country like Malawi, laughs when asked if he thinks it is rich like South Africa.

It is that perception of opportunity in South Africa that is drawing migrants and legitimate refugees – just as Africans are taking desperate measures to reach Europe from the other end of the continent. Although unemployment in South Africa exceeds 25 percent and crime levels are extreme, the Somalis and Ethiopians at Luwani acknowledged that they saw the country as synonymous with wealth.

"The trend is continuing. We are worried about the movement of people, the transiting," Jama said at the UNHCR office in Lilongwe. "There is a clear pattern – there is a migration going on in the region that has to be examined. People are coming in non-stop."

By Jack Redden
In Karonga, Malawi

UNHCR news

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