NAIROBI, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police have arrested 28 Ethiopians from a residential estate in Nairobi for being in the country illegally.
Nairobi County Police commander Joseph Ole Tito said on Sunday that the aliens were nabbed on Saturday from a house in Kasarani residential estate.
Ole Tito said the men had been in the house for four days as they waited to be sneaked out of the country to South Africa. They told police a man who was behind their smuggling was away.
"They will be arraigned in court once investigations are completed," the police commander said. Police said they were tipped off about the presence of the men in the house before the raid was staged.
They were taken to police custody ahead of their arraignment. The Kenyan police and immigration officials have decried increased cases in which Ethiopian aliens are nabbed in the country while on transit to either Tanzania or South Africa.
Ole Tito said they are looking for the smugglers behind the incident. Police said they face difficulties in dealing with the aliens because they cannot speak in Swahili and English.
The Saturday arrest is the latest in a series that have happened in the last four month alone where more than 100 Ethiopians have been seized in operations. The men were in a lorry being transported when they were stopped by police.
It is not clear when they left the Moyale border and how they managed to evade many roadblocks on the way. Police say an investigation has been launched to establish the movement of the aliens.
Cases of human smuggling have been on the rise in the region with hundreds of young men from Ethiopia finding their way into South Africa through Kenya in search of employment.
The authorities say several aliens who find their way into the Kenyan police cells have tripled in the past few weeks over stretching the capacity of the cells in the East African nation.
