RIGHTS: U.N. Exposes Asylum-for-Sale Racket in Nairobi

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2002 (IPS) - A U.N.-led investigation has unearthed a criminal network involving the Nairobi-based Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which sold refugee status to asylum seekers when it should have been provided free.

The travails of refugees were turned into business by the very people who were supposed to protect them, the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) said in a report Friday.

Criminal charges have been brought against three UNHCR staffers, all Kenyans. These include conspiracy to threaten to kill the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and the UNHCR representatives in Nairobi.

The network included six other persons, also Kenyans, two of them from a refugee-affiliated non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Nairobi.

The victims of the scam were mostly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. They paid money to emigrate from Kenya to Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States.

The fees extorted ranged from a few dollars for an appointment or to fill out a form, to up to 5,000 dollars to gain eligibility for refugee status.

An international task force, comprising investigators from the four Western nations, conducted the probe under the jurisdiction of OIOS, the investigative arm of the world body.

In a 22-page report released Friday, the OIOS said that “although this criminal enterprise has been demolished, the Investigations Division of OIOS must sound a loud note of caution: all of the push factors which gave rise to this one still remain.”

The structure of the principal criminal enterprise was well defined, according to investigators. The lowest echelon was made up of brokers from different nationalities within the refugee community. Their job was to solicit business.

The brokers were the scam’s eyes and ears in the refugee community. They were able to determine which refugee group had or could raise money for refugee documentation and resettlement status. The brokers would provide this information to persons in the higher tiers of the criminal network.

Refugees had to pay not only to obtain asylum status but also to enter the UNHCR office in Nairobi.

“These same persons also requested and received money to move prospective refugees further up in the queues or to facilitate the passage of a given refugee’s case to a higher level echelon in order for the case to be considered for resettlement,” the report said.

In one instance cited in the report, the three accused staff members tried to hire the services of a broker to write or organise the writing of five threatening letters in Arabic and English under the name of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. The letters were to be sent to three senior UNHCR officials and to two officials of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, including the ambassador.

UNHCR has a staff of more than 5,000 assigned to 277 offices in more than 120 countries.

There are more than 14 million refugees and 30 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide seeking asylum, refugee status, or resettlement to another country, according to the latest U.N. figures.

In Kenya alone, there are more than 250,000 asylum-seekers and refugees from neighbouring countries, housed primarily in camps operated by UNHCR.

“The complexity and size of the problem facing UNHCR and the task force can only be understood against the background of the significant refugee drama being played out in Kenya,” the OIOS said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was glad that the fraud was discovered “quite early, and (that we) got to work very quickly.”

The refugee camps, he said, were very large and Nairobi is a relatively large city. The U.N. will have to take measures “to make sure that it does not re-occur and tighten our controls.”

The OIOS singled out “the problem of poor management” at Nairobi, saying this provided the opportunities for the criminally minded to achieve “unjust enrichment at the expense of refugees.”

The OIOS acknowledged that, since June last year, the senior management of UNHCR has taken substantial measures to correct the management failings identified and to undertake necessary improvements in the operations in Kenya.

Responding to OIOS findings, UNHCR said that action has been initiated to redress the situation in Kenya and, equally important, to start a review of the UNHCR procedures in refugee status determination and resettlement globally.

“The situation that led to the need for this investigation is indeed regrettable,” it said. “But UNHCR has been able to learn and implement many lessons from the investigation.”

“As a result of the experience in Kenya, UNHCR will in the coming months become a more accountable organisation, management and performance will be strengthened and the oversight and investigation capacity will be improved,” it said.