Arrest
Police in Marsabit have arrested 19 aliens believed to be in the country illegally as the fight against human trafficking intensifies. Marsabit county police commander Patrick Mwakio said two Kenyan drivers were also nabbed when police mounted an impromptu roadblock at Laisamis town on the moyale-Isiolo highway.
Mr Mwakio said the police at Laisamis swang into action following a tip off from members of the public and intercepted the vehicle in which they were being ferried.
The county commander said that preliminary investigations indicate that the suspects believed to have been heading to Nairobi were Eritreans who had transited through Ethiopia.
He said that the government was determined to eradicate the problem of human trafficking and warned those engaging in the vice that they would be severely punished in accordance with the law.
The aliens were found to have no travel documents and that they would be arraigned in court for unlawfully being in the country. They were being transported in a Toyota land cruiser registration number KCU 577H that was being steered by two drivers who will also be arraigned in court for aiding illegal entry of aliens and human trafficking.
The aliens aged between 5 and 52 years included 12 men, 6 women and one child.
The arrest comes barely a week after the Eastern regional security team ordered the collapsing of security roadblocks from 14 to 3 along the Merille-Marsabit-Moyale stretch of the Isiolo-Moyale highway.
Regional commissioner Paul Rotich ordered the removal of the security check points saying they were unnecessarily many without tangible results against human and drug trafficking menace that was being fueled by the porous Kenya-Ethiopia border.
Mr Rotich said a strategy to replace the stationary roadblocks with mobile ones that would be intelligence based was arrived at in order to deal with the menace in a more effective manner.
The roadblocks were removed save for the ones mounted at Merille, Margis and Odha.