Hargeisa, Aug 17 (AFP) – Authorities in Somalia’s breakaway northwestern republic of Somaliland arrested three Belgian police officers on Tuesday, accusing them of human trafficking and violating immigration laws.
The officers were held after arriving in Somaliland’s main city Hargeisa from Ethiopia with a Somali national who they said was being deported from Belgium, said officials in the enclave which is not recognised internationally.
“The three men were deporting a Somali man to here,” Somaliland’s interior minister Abdullahi Ismail Ali told reporters at a news conference here.
“This is not a dumping site, we are not allowing such moves to happen.”
| ‘This is not a dumping site, we are not allowing such moves to happen’ |
Ali added that the Belgian police arrived in Somaliland without entry visas, an offence in the region which is desperately seeking global recognition of its independence, while other officials complained the incident was an insult.
“This was purely human trafficking by Belgium,” one Somaliland official said on condition of anonymity.The three men are being held in the city’s Ambassador Hotel under heavy police guard as authorities mull appropriate action, officials said.
Six weeks ago, Somaliland immigration officials foiled a similar attempt when an unnamed European nation attempted to abandon a deportee in Hargeisa.
A former British protectorate, Somaliland united with the former Italian colony in the south in 1960 but unilaterally broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991 after the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.
While Somalia proper has degenerated into lawlessness, Somaliland has been relatively peaceful.
Although its repeated appeals for recognition have been ignored, it has held several elections deemed to have been free and fair and built up many institutions of statehood in its self-declared capital in Hargeisa.
Somaliland now boasts its own president, government, parliament, police force, penal code and currency.
Its officials fiercely reject any suggestion of re-uniting with the rest of Somalia.
Souce: AFP, Aug 17, 2006
