Kenyan police on Friday arrested 132 Ethiopian nationals in a security operation conducted in a residential estate in Nairobi.
Area police commander Joseph Gichangi said the Ethiopians were illegal immigrants who had sneaked into the country by road, and were in the process of being smuggled to South Africa.
“The 132 suspects were arrested on Friday afternoon in a residential house in Mihango. We don’t know how they passed many police roadblocks without being detected,” Gichangi told journalists in Nairobi.
He also said that two Kenyans were arrested on accusations of being in the human smuggling trade.
A similar operation carried out on October 6 in Mihango led to the arrest of another 67 Ethiopian immigrants.
Police and immigration officials have decried increased cases in which Ethiopian nationals are nabbed in the country while on transit to Tanzania or South Africa.
The police say they face difficulties in dealing with the illegal immigrants as they cannot speak in English or the local Swahili language.
On several occasion the immigrants were found locked up in congested rooms in Kenyan towns and cities but the trade continues to thrive even as many were repatriated.
The Kenyan authorities have blamed the vastness of the region for the runaway influx of foreigners into Kenya through Moyale on Kenya-Ethiopia borders.
