Tanzania is deporting 57 Somali migrants who illegally entered that country last month, officials said. The migrants who were fleeing from the war in Somalia are mostly youth and included six children, officials said.
The migrants were ordered to pay a fine of 30,000 Tanzanian shillings (about US$30) each or three-year in jail but Somali migrants who had spent a month in custody, were commuted to Tsh. 24,600 each.
Tanzania's Immigration Department is repatriating to them to their country after payment. Only six children were not fined by the court.
Police officials in southern Iringa region were quoted as saying that another 19 Ethiopian migrants were arrested together with Somalis as they were heading to the Malawi border.
Ethiopians who failed to pay the fine were sentence to jail terms.
At least 17,000 illegal migrants from the Horn of Africa flee to South Africa annually. Most of them transit through Kenya, according to the International Organization for Migration’s report in February.
The organization said crisis and poverty were forcing Somalis and Ethiopians to carry out dangerous journeys to better places.
Somali and Ethiopia migrants who head to South Africa mostly end up in jails.
About 74,000 migrants from the Horn of Africa used to travel through the Red Sea to Yemen in the last year, which rise to 50% in 2008, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Source: Africanews
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