Dickens Wasonga reporting for API from Kenya
Detectives in Kisumu East district have launched investigations into a strange incident where thieves mysteriously got access into two government offices at the district headquarters and stole computers and some sensitive files.

By last Friday police officers drawn from the CID in the district had grilled more than eight officers working from the affected departments which included that of the civil registration and youth development who also reportedly  recorded their statements with the police  over the matter.

Speaking to the press in his office on Friday morning, the Kisumu East district acting DC Mr. Willis Cheboi said they suspect the theft of the government files and the computers was an inside job.

The DC said preliminary reports indicated that an officer attached  to one of
 the departments was seen at his place of work at around 7.30 pm on the night the incident took place.

”  Administration police officers manning the sentry heard a bang at the door leading to the offices and upon inquiring one of the officers established the officer who had also packed his personal car outside the offices was actually the one in there” said the DC.

He was amongst the people the CID picked for questioning on the morning the theft was reported.

But even more curious is the fact that none of the said offices was broken into.  The acting DC and the district civil registrar Mr. Hesbon Odhiambo both confirmed to the press that none of the offices had their main doors broken into a fact which indicate the thieves must have had a spare key to gain entry.

The civil registrar said six computers were carted away during the incident together with several birth and death certificates. Three computers belonging
 to the department of youth affairs was also stolen.

The thugs also made away with the government seal which is used to process the vital documents.  The registrar disclosed that people wishing to apply for the documents will have to wait for unknown period of time before work could resume.

He also said there were fears the thieves could use the stolen seal to process fake certificates to unsuspecting applicants.

While the Administration police who man the sentry where the two offices are located appeared to point accusing fingers on the officers at the department over the theft, those at the departments, including the registrar wondered how thieves could access the offices and steal while the place is under tight security day and night.

”   These offices are located  just about ten meters way to the sentry where the officers guard.The whole place is usually manned by officers and it is a puzzle to us” He  said.

But the acting DC felt something fishy happened.

”Normally before these officers leave, they must deposit their office door keys at the sentry and must sign.  On this particular day, the officers from the two departments claims they left their respective keys but never signed.  We are wondering why they failed to do so” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether those who recorded their statements with the police on Friday included officers who were at the sentry on the night of the incident.

ENDS

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Photo: Flare

Many of the young women are trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation (File photo)

TEL AVIV,  – The arrest and imprisonment earlier this month of the head of Israel’s biggest trafficking ring of young women will deter some of those involved in sex slavery, but former victims and activists say much more needs to be done to stop the practice.

Rami Saban, who headed the largest trafficking operation discovered in Israel for years, received an 18-year jail sentence on 10 May. Saban and three partners are said to have trafficked thousands of young women from eastern Europe, although no one can provide the actual figure. Some 13 victims testified against him.

”They got rid of the plain ones and kept only the pretty and thin ones,” said T., one of those who gave evidence. “We were taken to a house somewhere, I don’t know where, and told to strip. They checked our bodies, our skin, birthmarks, scars. We were instructed about our `work’ here and given fake ID cards. Then they taught us a few words in Hebrew for work purposes, and took photos of us for a catalogue.”

Saban and his partners bought and sold young women from the former Soviet Union “like cattle” and ran brothels in Israel where they were forced to work every minute of their waking hours, sources said. The operation ran with hardly any interruption from 1999 to 2008.

The women were recruited mostly in Moldova and Ukraine, most on false promises of work in Israel as cleaners or carers, then they were flown to Egypt before being smuggled into Israel. Testimonies collected by NGOs working with trafficked women speak of rape and abuse by Bedouin smugglers on the journey.

Rita Chaikin, coordinator of the NGO Isha L’Isha, which supports trafficked women, said: “We applaud the police for this important operation. I hope the women involved in this case will not come to any harm. We also hope that the court will not be lenient towards the suspects and will also award compensation to these women for the suffering and damage they’ve endured.”

Saban will have to pay only 15,000 NIS (US$3,800) to each of the 13 women, but Chaikin is hopeful the sentence will deter traffickers from following in his footsteps.

A prosecution witness said they were sold to brothel owners at prices ranging from US$3,000-10,000, depending on age and appearance on arrival in Israel.

Suffering

But that was the beginning of their suffering. According to some of the victims, they were mistreated at the hands of their “owners” if they refused to work, cried or got drunk. They would also work for a month with no pay until the money owed to the pimp was paid off.

“We were fined for everything,” T, another former victim, said. “If the client was unhappy for some reason, if we tried to talk him into helping us, if we got drunk, or cried or did not put on makeup or refused some sexual acts, we were fined. I was beaten by clients and by my `owner’. We were told that if we tried to run away, they will harm our families back home. After three months of no pay we were told we would receive 20 NIS per client (5US$), while the `owner’ charged the clients 250-300 NIS (US$60-75).”

T. tried to commit suicide twice and finally managed to escape. Now she lives in Maagan, a shelter for trafficked women in central Israel, where the women receive treatment and vocational training. The shelter was established in February 2004 by Israeli authorities following the annual US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report in 2003, which stated: “Israel is a destination country for trafficked persons. Women from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in the former Soviet Union are trafficked to Israel for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.”

Apart from establishing the shelter, the Israeli government also instituted a series of actions by police which made trafficking of women much harder, including special training for police officers to identify and rescue victims from brothels. But much more needs to be done.

According to the annual US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report, Israel “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Israel continued law enforcement actions against sex trafficking and continued to make strong prevention efforts.”

One trafficking survivor who resides in Israel, but did not testify in the trial, told IRIN: “I am happy at the verdict and the efforts this country is making but I still remember my clients who had no qualms about `buying’ my body for an hour and never questioned their doings, as if I were a piece of meat.”

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source www.irinnews.org

MOMBASA,  – Following three grenade attacks in recent months and a US “terror” alert, residents of the coastal Kenyan city of Mombasa are bracing themselves for the possibility of future attacks; local leaders are working towards better disaster preparedness and improvements in the emergency services.

Three people lost their lives after a grenade attack on a bar in the Mshomoroni area of Mombasa on the night of 24 June, a day after the US issued a warning of an imminent attack. One person was killed and several injured in a suspected grenade attack on 15 May at a Mombasa sports bar; two grenade attacks in the city on 31 March left at least 15 injured. There have also been a spate of attacks in the capital, Nairobi, and northeastern areas of the country since Kenya crossed into southern Somalia in October 2011 to help stamp out the radical Islamist group, Al Shabab.

“We here in Mombasa had never thought that one day we will have to handle situations such as this. However, now that the reality is here with us, we have no option but to find ways of dealing with it,” said James Mureu, chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Mombasa County. “There is a need, for example, to come up with a disaster preparedness committee that would specifically deal with the terror threats. And that indeed, is what we should be planning to do in collaboration with other like-minded stakeholders living in this town.”

Among other things, a disaster-preparedness committee would liaise with emergency services to ensure they are fully equipped and train members of the public on the correct response to explosions and other disasters.

Emergency services

According to Nelly Muluka, communications manager at the Kenya Red Cross society, one of the biggest problems in the immediate aftermath of an attack is crowd control.

“Our staff on ground usually find it extremely hard sometimes to administer the required services as a result of pushing and shoving from the crowd who gather around these scenes seconds after disaster,” she said. “It would be even more catastrophic if another grenade is hurled onto the gathering or yet [another] explosion goes off,” she added.

And while the Red Cross says it has enough trained paramedics and ambulances to deal with similar incidents in the future and is training more trauma counsellors, there is a shortage of health workers at the city’s public hospitals, and there is a need to boost blood donations in preparation for similar emergencies.

“All casualties in such disasters are always rushed to the General Hospital, and with that in mind, we always recall our staff either on leave or off-duty to report to work, depending on how big the disaster would be,” said Anisa Omar, the provincial director of public health and sanitation. “Blood for casualties, however, is usually not sufficient.”

More police patrols

The police, meanwhile, have stepped up their monitoring of the city and its suburbs, with uniformed and plain clothes officers patrolling the streets and crowded areas such as market places, public beaches and the ferry service.

“Our intelligence officers are on high alert… we are burning the midnight oil,” said provincial police chief Aggrey Adoli.

Bars and restaurant owners are enhancing security in their premises by hiring security personnel from private firms and purchasing security sensors to scan patrons entering their premises.

“I decided not only to install a first aid kit but also came up with write-ups in all my premises on how patrons can avoid severe injuries or save themselves altogether in case of an attack,” said Robert Ocholla, who owns a chain of restaurants in Mombasa.

According to Sam Ikwaye, outgoing chairman of the Mombasa chapter of the Pubs, Entertainment and Restaurant Association of Kenya, the upswing in demand for security gadgets has allowed some unscrupulous business people to put counterfeit sensors on the market.

“There has been a rush in buying the security gadgets, thus making some unscrupulous shopkeepers to take advantage and to sell fake machines to unsuspecting businessmen,” he said. “We have now advised our members where they can purchase effective ones.”

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source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Heba Aly/IRIN

Aid workers say some elderly Syrian refugees in Jordan are in need of support

MAFRAQ/AMMAN,  – Haweyah Khawis, born in 1909, lived more than 100 years in Homs, Syria, until two months ago when she was smuggled to the Jordanian border accompanied by Anoud, her daughter-in-law.

When IRIN spoke to her she seemed a bit confused: “Homs is damaged. I heard sounds and sounds.”  

The elderly are an especially vulnerable group, often needing higher levels of assistance than their struggling families can provide, and many of them are doubly disadvantaged by failing to register with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan.
 
“UNHCR cannot give an exact number of those elderly who have not registered with them. For the elderly it can be a bigger challenge to register with UNHCR due to the fact that some of them may not be mobile,” UNHCR external relations officer Aoife McDonnell told IRIN.

Aid workers from the Syrian Women’s Association (SWA) and the Islamic Charity Centre Society (ICCS) in Jordan, who are working closely with the refugees, say the numbers of the elderly in need are considerable.
 
“Unfortunately, we do not have a plan to help this marginalized group yet. But we know some of them need wheelchairs, diapers, and medication as their children come and tell us,” Khaled Ghanem of ICCS told IRIN.
 
“People at this age need medication for ongoing problems such as diabetes and blood pressure, which we do our best to provide when they ask for it,” said a volunteer doctor at the ICCS centre in Mafraq (town near Syrian border).
 
“We only provide them with mattresses, blankets, heaters. Lack of income means people are not eating properly, which makes elderly people’s health worsen every day,” said Ghadban.
 
“Some need surgery for disc-related pains, but unfortunately, we cannot help them. There are others who need physiotherapy and we turn them away when they ask for help,” she added.
 
According to aid workers, elderly refugees are more likely to suffer from depression after being displaced to a new country, especially when their new living conditions are bad.
 
Lamya*, 61, fled to Jordan with her brother and his family after she lost her only child during the crackdown on protesters.
 
“They registered me on the same card with my brother. Can you imagine someone at my age asking my brother for money to get on the bus? Can you imagine living with my sister-in-law and so many children in one room?” she said with eyes full of tears.
 
“There is an urgent need for psychologists to provide support for the elderly. We lack expertise in this field. They need support as they have been hit badly by the crisis,” said ICCS’s Ghanem.

“Providing  tertiary health care is a challenge as it is too expensive. Some donors can be reluctant to pay for it as the cost of one [tertiary] treatment sometimes covers the cost of 200 cases primary health care,” said McDonnell.

 According to UNHCR in late June, 33,079 Syrian refugees have been registered in Turkey, 26,941 in Jordan, 22,530 in Lebanon and 5,839 in Iraq.

*Not a real name
 
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source www.irinnews.org