Even with a lot of work put into apprehending illegal immigrants within the nation, closing trafficking syndicates and improving porous border control measures continue to be extremely difficult tasks.
52 Ethiopian nationals were detained by immigration officials in the Northern Region only this week on suspicion of entering the nation on the night of March 19, 2024, without following the correct entry procedures, in violation of Malawi Immigration Act Section 21(1).
Following a routine inspection by immigration officials in the Mkombezi district of Rumphi District, the Ethiopians who were apprehended were all male.
The immigration authorities have also seized a 20-tonner van registered under the license plate NE 9315, which is owned by Skylight Logistics and is believed to have been used to transport the detained suspects. The van is located at P.O. Box 267 in Lilongwe.
When Immigration Officers on patrol examined inside the car after unknown individuals had abandoned it in a nearby thicket, they found that the immigrants had been hiding inside the van’s back, which is why they had been arrested.
None of the 52 suspects had any travel documents that would allow them to enter or remain in the nation. They are all being held in custody while the judicial process is ongoing.
This development occurs just 12 days after 28 Ethiopians were also detained by immigration officials in the north for unauthorized entry.
The event has been confirmed by Sergeant Francis Chitambuli, the Northern Region Immigration Public Relations Officer.
A few weeks ago, police in the border district of Karonga, in neighboring Tanzania, detained 27 Ethiopian citizens and Saidi Kapaya, a truck driver from Tanzania, on suspicion of breaking the law by entering the nation.
Notifying newsaih.com of the arrest, Police from the Kaporo Police Post detained the suspects, according to Sergeant George Mulewa, after they were discovered hiding among various objects in a truck with the license plate T343 EDY and lacking travel documentation, mulewa claimed that they were detained by police at the Songwe-Karonga M1 road barrier.
Malawi becomes a hub of passage for refugees from Ethiopia
A few months ago, the increasing number of Ethiopians entering Malawi was brought to light by the discovery of 30 corpses following suspected human trafficking.
Human rights and migration experts have noted that Malawi’s porous borders are increasingly serving as important transit points for refugees from neighbouring African nations, including Ethiopia.
In Malawi’s northern Mzimba area, the discovery of thirty deaths in a mass grave in a forest raised worries about a migration situation that needed serious attention.
Pasqually Zulu from Malawi’s immigration agency told a journalist, “They are Ethiopian nationals.”
According to Zulu, initial inquiries revealed that the migrants were young Ethiopians.
“Some had Ethiopian IDs and contacts of relatives from Ethiopia and South Africa,” he stated.
According to Peter Kalaya, a spokesman for Malawi’s police, preliminary findings indicate that the migrants might have choked to death while riding in a vehicle, and authorities are currently investigating the deaths as possible cases of human trafficking.
“We suspect that these people were in transit from countries up north probably going to south Africa because that is what we get from people we intercept now and again,” Kalaya stated.
Human traffickers’ transit route
The United Nations refugee organization (UNHCR) attested to the fact that foreign nationals being trafficked to nations such as South Africa are now using Malawi as a transit route, “We typically record between 200 and 400 asylum seekers entering the nation each month,” said UNHCR associate external relations officer Kenyi Emmanuel Lukajo.
A 30-ton (33-ton) tanker truck that was transporting 42 Ethiopians into Malawi via the Tanzanian border was seized by Malawian authorities in July.
In the meantime, local police said that they had stopped at least 221 migrants between January and September of last year, 186 of whom were Ethiopians.
Additionally, the government of Malawi is presently working to repatriate about 600 Ethiopian citizens who are being held by security services. Since August, almost 198 of them have been sent home.
According to Lukajo, some of the migrants are looking for places to find work, while others may be here due to problems back home. Either way, they’re looking for somewhere to go and something to do. It is a cause for concern.
The refugee organization is currently running awareness campaigns about the risks involved in such journeys among asylum seekers in Malawi.
“What we do is to create awareness on what could lead to issues of trafficking and dangers that they can detect,” added Lukajo.
Ethiopians are escaping, but why?
Dr. Girmachew Adugna of Addis Ababa’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Flight and Migration Competence Center told journalists that among the reasons people, especially the youth, leave Ethiopia include war, political instability, extreme poverty, and social and cultural marginalization.
According to Adugna, internal displacement brought on by government policies is another factor in the exodus of young people from the nation.
“While economic factors play a role, social factors also play a role in young people choosing this dangerous path,” he stated.
“The family had to sell their home, land, or belongings in order to raise the money for this migration when it initially started. These days, friends, family, and relatives from the diaspora—the great majority of whom are men—fund this movement, Adugna continued.
Many Ethiopians who are fleeing their nation travel to Africa’s southern regions. According to Adugna, they will have to go via Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe on their way to South Africa.
Smugglers help a lot of the migrants who travel this route, who are mostly from southern Ethiopian districts. It is impossible to describe the experiences these young, inexperienced boys are having on their voyage. It is cruel. “It began in the 1990s,” he said.
inadequate border monitoring
Human rights specialists attribute the current state of affairs to a deficiency of strict monitoring methods to monitor immigrants entering Malawi via unexplored paths.
The spokeswoman for immigration for Malawi, Zulu, stated that his team is still having trouble controlling unauthorized immigration,
“Yes, we agree about the porousness of the borders, but we also have several cases where we have arrested [people],” he stated.
Maclan Kanyang’wa, an expert in international relations, told local media that the Malawian government was not to blame for individuals seeking safety in its nation.
“We are living in a global village so there will be movement of people and goods,” Kanyang’wa said. She added that “the most important thing is that we need to be vigilant abut who passes on our borders and that they are thoroughly checked.”
The ministry of homeland security for Malawi expressed concern about the situation and stated that security authorities are working to stop the current wave of illegal immigration.
