A group of Ethiopians who had been arrested for being in the country illegally and while being smuggled to South Africa staged a hunger strike at the Buruburu police station, Nairobi demanding their immediate repatriation.
The 47 Ethiopian aliens were arrested in Donholm area on July 23, 2024.
They have been detained at the station since then as authorities seek ways of repatriating them.
They had been arrested from a house where they were waiting to be picked up by their smuggler for Tanzania and later to Mozambique and South Africa.
Police say the group has on various occasions since July 30 refused to take meals provided to them by the canteen manager.
Police said they had contacted immigration officials to organize the planned repatriation.
The aliens usually stage such hunger strike drama to force authorities to send them back to their country.
These are the latest arrests to be made of Ethiopians in a series.
Tens of Ethiopians are smuggled in a worrying trend, officials say.
According to police, most of the aliens from Ethiopia use the Moyale route and try their luck as they head to South Africa and the Middle East oblivious of the dangers ahead.
Tens of the aliens are usually arrested in various places in the country as they wait to be moved to their next destinations.
Officials from the Transnational Organized Crime are conducting joint operations to deal with the issue of human smuggling.
Most of those arrested come to Kenya to seek jobs or are in transit.
What is puzzling is how the immigrants manage to evade many police roadblocks mounted from the Moyale border where they use to Nairobi because they travel in groups.
There are more than 20 roadblocks on the stretch, which raises the seriousness of the security agents taming the practice.
As part of efforts to deal with the menace, an Ethiopian national was last year sentenced to 31 years in prison for trafficking 12 fellow Ethiopian immigrants in Nairobi.
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