UN Integrated Regional Information Network
September 11, 2001

Dozens of ethnic Oromo refugees protesting outside the UNHCR office in Nairobi vowed today to continue their week old hunger strike until their demands were met. More than 30 students who have fled Ethiopia over the last two years - to escape what they call systematic persecution by the Ethiopian government - say that they would "rather die" than be transported to a Kenyan refugee camp as required by Kenyan law.

"We are refusing to go to the camps, because we will be killed by Ethiopian government agents if we go there," Darara Galata, a spokesman for the hunger strikers told IRIN. "We are requesting UNHCR to take us to a place where we know we will be safe," he said. The Ethiopian government has strongly denied the existence of security agents operating in Kenya, and has encouraged students who fled from riots in April to return safely to Ethiopia.

Paul Stromberg, a spokesman for UNHCR, said that although UNHCR could not offer the students a cast-iron security guarantee in the camps, he insisted that they would be safer there than they were in Nairobi. He also stressed that UNHCR had no option but to abide by Kenyan law, which requires that the claims of all refugees arriving in Kenya must be processed in one of the two camps. "While we sympathise with their situation, we have to respect government policy. To do otherwise would be giving in to blackmail."