?Mustafa is a person who has really suffered. He's one refugee who is in need of help" - lawyer from Kituo Cha Sheria
NAIROBI (TrustLaw) - Mustafa Jara Berisso’s scarred body bears witness to the burning, stabbings and shootings that he says drove him into exile as a refugee from Ethiopia.
But it is his mind that has been most severely damaged by years of persecution and torture.
Almost a decade after crossing into neighbouring Kenya, he is still terrified of being targeted by Ethiopian government agents on suspicion of belonging to the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which has been fighting since 1993 for more autonomy for the Oromia region.
“All Oromo are in fear because of the spies of the Ethiopian government,” Berisso, 34, told TrustLaw. “They can kill you any time, any place, because they are very powerful. For us Oromo, life in Kenya is not guaranteed.”
Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, the Oromo, account for 27 million people out of a total population of 80 million.
Kenyan policy dictates that refugees must stay in camps if they are to receive food, shelter, healthcare and education services from U.N. aid agencies. So, when Berisso first arrived in Kenya, he was sent to Daadab refugee camp, near Kenya’s arid northern border.
“I didn’t think that I was going to be a refugee. In my life, I want to change my country. I want to help my family. I want to be a good man for my society,” Berisso said.
“When somebody calls me refugee, it’s very painful. I don’t like it. That name is not my will. It has no dignity. A refugee is something rubbish. I see myself as nothing because I am a refugee.”
Last year, the authorities granted Berisso permission to move to Nairobi, after he repeatedly expressed fears that Ethiopian government spies were looking for him in the camp.
Down in Kenya's capital, he sought help from Kituo Cha Sheria, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which was set up by young lawyers in 1973. The group provides free legal representation and advice to some of an estimated 100,000 refugees that live in Nairobi.
"FEELING ASHAMED"
“Mustafa is a person who has really suffered. He’s one refugee who is in need of help,” said Wasia Masitsa, coordinator of Kituo Cha Sheria’s office in the Eastleigh suburb.
The group, whose donors include the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, receives between 250 and 350 clients a month, mostly Somalis but also Ethiopians, Rwandans, Burundians, Congolese, Ugandans and Eritreans.
Much of the time, the legal aid centre helps clients obtain documents such as birth certificates and movement passes with which they can leave the refugee camps.
“I really value my time here when I serve refugees and asylum seekers,” Masitsa told TrustLaw. “They are very vulnerable. They are very hopeless but with time we think that the little work we put in this project may change the lives of a few refugees and asylum seekers.”
Kituo Cha Sheria’s work is often taken up with cases of harassment and arbitrary detention by Kenya's notoriously corrupt police force.
“Police have gone to the extent of shredding papers that refugees use, that are their only protection in this country. They tear the (UN refugee agency UNHCR) mandate letters of the refugees so that when they lock them up, these people can be charged,” Masitsa said.
It is an offence for refugees to be in Kenya without UNHCR letters proving their status.
“The police see refugees as easy targets for extortion because they are vulnerable and they lack adequate protection,” Masitsa added.
They also find it easy to persecute refugees with impunity because many Kenyans regard them as “criminals”, “competitors” and “intruders”, he said.
Getting on the wrong side of the police is yet another worry that weighs Berisso down. He has no job, his wife, Mergitu, is three months pregnant and they have not been able to pay the rent for the last five months.
They are living on borrowed time, waiting for the landlord to evict them from the room they have been living in Nairobi’s busy Somali-dominated Eastleigh suburb.
“In Nairobi, it’s very difficult. Everything needs money,” Berisso said. “At this time in my life, I am supposed to assist others, to take responsibility for my family. But I have never had that power. I feel very ashamed.”
In theory, refugees have the right to seek work in Kenya. In reality, they are rarely granted work permits, which cost $750. It's not just the money that is an obstacle to finding work. Unemployment is generally high in Kenya.
Berisso’s case is not unusual. Ethiopians make up one-quarter of refugees registered with the United Nations in Nairobi. Most of them ethnic Oromo like Berisso.
NEW LIFE OVERSEAS?
Masitsa said he had applied for Berisso to be resettled overseas.
“His psychological state is not that balanced. We have tried to refer him to some organisations for counselling but he thinks that he does not need counselling. He tells us that what he needs is actually resettlement,” Masitsa said.
When he was 15, Berisso said the Ethiopian army shot his father dead and firebombed their home.
“They said: ‘You are supporting OLF’. But my family never supported OLF. Because we speak Oromo, many innocent people are killed,” he said.
When he was 22, his elder brother, Metiku, was also killed on suspicion of being OLF.
“They surrounded our farm. They chased my brother when he ran. I heard him cry. After crying for some time, he stopped,” Berisso recalled.
Berisso was shot in the leg and hospitalised for six months, watched over by an armed guard. Once he recuperated, he was transferred to prison.
“They tortured me badly. Here, they knifed me with a bayonet,” he explained, showing the scars on his leg.
After a year, he was released with a warning.
“They told me: ‘Don’t even communicate with Oromo. If we see you with one or two, we’ll kill you.’”
Three years later, Berisso and his wife were having dinner at his uncle’s house. While they were eating, the military surrounded the building.
“They told my uncle to come out and as soon he came out they shot him dead,” Berisso said.
Berisso then escaped and fled across the border to Kenya.
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