Border Resident Communities: New hiding places for migrant smugglers?

By: David Hofmeijer

Many African communities today face serious challenges if residing on or near a border. Border residents are often caught between the administrative processes of two states and their cross-border trade in food, agricultural products and livestock involves little or no intent to deceive the authorities. Indeed, locals will often ignore what they perceive to be “artificial” and unpoliced borders; traversing areas as they have traditionally done for centuries. Unfortunately, however, this has become one of the new environments that migrant smugglers now use to move anonymously between states.

A visit to the Tarakea border post between Tanzania and Kenya was carried out in January 2015 by IOM-ACBC officials in order fact-find and assess the situation of border resident communities in that area.

Taking advantage of the fact that border communities move freely and often without checks, migrant smugglers join these movements and cross borders unseen and without any inspections. Movements are higher particularly on days when border resident communities are involved in trade at the end of the month when they travel to nearby cities.

The Tarakea border post is located at coordinates 2°59'28.5"S 37°34'05.1"E and is a small-sized border crossing on the northern side of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was identified by IOM as a possible staging area for migrant smuggling from Kenya into Tanzania. Tanzanian immigration authorities in the city of Moshi have in the past identified and detained Somali and Ethiopian irregular migrants and the suspicion is that Somali smugglers are using the Tarakea border as a means of entry for smuggled migrants into Tanzania.

After taking them across the border, smugglers are suspected of temporarily housing migrants in the cities of Himo, Moshi and Arusha for two or three days, before moving them on to Malawi and, ultimately, South Africa. This phenomenon has appeared in the last five years and was first identified in 2009 by IOM and described in the publication In Pursuit of the Southern Dream.

Tanzania immigration officer at Tarakea border post standing at the border, left being Kenya and Right being Tanzania 

The Tanzanian immigration officer at the Tarakea Border, Mr. Said Hajj, when interviewed, explained that sometimes the borders between States are often nothing more than a dirt road, with residents farming and living over internationally demarcated areas. This proves to be very challenging for the officers stationed at these border crossing points as the volume of crossings per day is impossible to track. Additionally manually captured data and the inability of officers to check or verify information makes the situation even more challenging.

One of the solutions that IOM currently proposes to decrease the instances of irregular activity in border resident communities is the introduction a border resident card or BRC. The border resident card is designed to be issued to all border residents who are registered so they can be logged at every crossing. This also assists in identifying non border residents. BRCs are an important element for bi-lateral relations of countries sharing a border where intensive cross-border movements take place for various economic, social or cultural reasons.

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DRD & ACBC Donor Visit to Tanzania Study Tour to Holili (Tanzania/Kenya) OSBP under construction

Current border post Tanzania side

ACBC's Marcellino Ramkishun briefing the delegates on OSBP

Tanzania side of OSBP under final stages of construction

Training on intelligence and risk analysis on border management

“Threats are real in Uganda and the entire country is looking at you to determine the security of the country”, stressed the Commissioner for Immigration control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Anthony Namara, at the opening of the training on intelligence and risk analysis on border management organized by the International Organization for Migration from 22^nd to 24^th September, 2014.

Representatives of various border management, security and intelligence agencies of Uganda participated at three day training and discussed immigration intelligence, identifying risk management to enhance the border security to cope with threats like terrorism, organized crime and disease outbreaks such as the Ebola outbreak. The commissioner pointed out the importance of improving the interaction within the agencies to strengthen the security of Uganda: “information is the power to achieve the objectives to accomplish for the good of our country”.

As a land lock country, border control is crucial to secure the stability of Uganda and regulate movements of goods and people: “Your role is vital as you are the gate keepers of Uganda with the keys that determine who enters to the country”, highlighted the Integrated Border Management Specialist of IOM African Capacity Building Center, Marcellino Ramkishun during the training.  

The training was held under the “Strengthening Border Management in Uganda” project implemented by IOM Uganda in close cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and funded by the Government of Japan. The project runs until the end of December 2014 and targets the improvement of the institutional, infrastructural and human resource capacities of the Government of Uganda to better manage its borders and supports increased border security.

#ACBC #IOMTanzania Immigration Tanzania,Humanitarian Assistance to Migrants and E-Reg. of Irregular Migrants Training March05th -18th 2015

ACBC Trains Somali Police Officers in Human Trafficking Investigation.

In its ongoing efforts according to the IOM mandate and to the Country Office, IOM, under the project Prevention of Trafficking, Gender Based Violence and Protection and Care for Victims in Somalia, conducted three day training, in Moshi. The workshop for the Somali Anti Trafficking Police Unit took place from 8^th to 11^th, December, 2014.10 police officers including their Director of Investigation and two female officers from the Unit, took part in the training. The workshop aimed at enhancing the Somali Anti Trafficking Police Unit on; understanding transnational Organized crime and Human Trafficking, the investigation process and approaches, assistance and protection of victims and the link between gender and human trafficking.

Speaking to the ACBC media focal point –Pamela Kyando, the female CT officers, Lul Saleban Ali and Sainab Abdullahi Hassan, stated, “We are happy with the training, although it is difficult to work in the Anti- Trafficking Unit, because it involves organized crime, also our location, but through this training session we have learnt a lot, especially how to detect traffickers and how to support and assist the victims of trafficking.”

While the training included theories and concepts on Counter Trafficking, its aim was to support the functions and services of the police, as practically as possible, in accordance to the developments made to date in Counter Trafficking projects, in Somalia.

When asked about the effectiveness of the training, the Director of Department of Immigration, Abdirashid Ali Ahmed, said, “We will be sending more Somalis in the Counter Trafficking Unit to ACBC, we cannot be the only ones with these skills, we need this knowledge to be disseminated to all the police officers in Somalia.”  

Tarakea Border Post Study Tour

A visit to the Tarakea border post between Tanzania and Kenya was carried out on 8 January 2015 by IOM-ACBC officials in order fact-find and assess the border management needs of Tanzania along the Namanga – Tanga axis.

The border from Namanga to Tanga, on the coast, is the only part of the Tanzanian border which has not yet received IOM border management assistance and the Tarakea border was identified as a possible staging area for migrant smuggling from Kenya into Tanzania.

The Tarakea border post is located at coordinates 2°59'28.5"S 37°34'05.1"E and is a small-sized border crossing on the northern side of Mt. Kilimanjaro.