Post by Onyango Oloo on Sept 28, 2014 23:17:33 GMT 3
SENT TO UNHCR, POLICE, KITUO, AMNESTY & OTHERS:
Riak Chagai Being Returned to War Torn South Sudan
By Onyango Oloo, Human Rights Activist, Nairobi
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Please I implore your office to intervene in this matter on an urgent basis. My name is Onyango Oloo. My number is 07xx xxx xxx I am a very close friend of Riak Chagai Atem (07xx xxx xxx). Riak is a refugee under the protection of the UNHCR. She is currently locked up in a room in Eldoret. I have been speaking to her since yesterday. She has been kidnapped from Kasarani, Nairobi with her 3 year old son and separated from her two other children. This is at the instigation of her father who has mobilized six men-some of them Ms. Riak’s relatives- to forcibly take her to South Sudan-a country she has not seen she was five years old. Her crime: getting into a relationship with a Kenyan man.
A South Sudanese who has been residing in Kenya for more than 22 years has been abducted in Nairobi and is being trafficked against her will on the firm instructions of her father who is a senior SPLA military officer based in Nairobi.
Riak Chagai Atem, a 34 year old single mother of three was lured by a family member from the Kasarani home where she helps take of her aging and ailing mother. On reaching Nakuru where her first born sister lives, she was forcibly frogmarched to the country bus station where she bundled into a Kakuma bus en route to Juba, South Sudan. That was on Saturday, September 27, 2014. Earlier the six burly male relatives beat her up accusing her of disobeying her father and bringing shame to the family.
Her only crime appears to be stubbornly refusing to give up a romantic relationship with a Kenyan man she fell in love with in December 2013. Her abduction is the culmination of a litany of beatings, psychological harassment, confinement and isolation she has endured at the hands of her father who is a General in the South Sudanese army and wields considereable clout within the higher echelons of Juba government circles by virtues of the fact that he is one of the venerated “ old historicals” who is credited as part of the nucleus that formed the SPLM and unleashed the first rebel attack on the then Nimeiri regime.
A very conservative disciplinarian, General Chagai Atem is a polygamist with seven different spouses. He abandoned Riak’s mother close to two decades ago but insists on controlling his brood of close to forty offspring. If he had his way he would marry off her daughter to another scion of South Sudanese society. He is quite incensed that her daughter has persisted in seeing her Kenyan lover. Three months ago after another round of beatings he warned Riak darkly that he had the means of shipping his daugher back to Sudan.
This is not an idle boast. In December Riak had to flee the airport when her father drove her there, ticket in tow, determined to accompany his daughter to Juba.
Riak Chagai Atem contacted this writer-who has previously accompanied her to the offices of concerned human rights lawyers like Kituo & NCHRDD who had heard of her plight. She was quite frightened. She informed the writer of her beatings the previous night; how she had adamantly refused to board an earlier bus and how she first locked up in a guest house in Kitale before being tken to Eldoret she is being confined. She appeals urgently for an intervention. She explained that she had been whisked from Nairobi a couple days ago without getting a chance to carry any money. She is with her youngest son, Santos, 3 who is severely traumatized.
She is quite wary about approaching a family member for assistance because the few who are not in South Sudan or Kenya are stuck in Canada, USA and Australia and are all cowed by their strictures of the family patriarch, her father.
She is convinced that more harm may befall her, especially if her kidnappers manage to smuggle her across the border.
Riak Chagai Atem is a certified, bona fide refugee who is in Kenya under the aegis of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees ever since she arrived in Kakuma Camp in 1992 . She is therefore protected under Kenyan, African Union laws. It is illegal to abduct and traffic human beings. Physical assault, psychological anguish and mental torture violate many human rights canons and principles.
Her situation is likely to be aggravated if there are no urgent interventions from concerned individuals.
This is an urgent appeal to the concerned authorities in Kenya and South Sudan as well as human rights groups, the UNHCR, lawyers and faith groups to step in and rescue Riak Chagai Atem from this anguish.
By Onyango Oloo, Human Rights Activist, Nairobi
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Please I implore your office to intervene in this matter on an urgent basis. My name is Onyango Oloo. My number is 07xx xxx xxx I am a very close friend of Riak Chagai Atem (07xx xxx xxx). Riak is a refugee under the protection of the UNHCR. She is currently locked up in a room in Eldoret. I have been speaking to her since yesterday. She has been kidnapped from Kasarani, Nairobi with her 3 year old son and separated from her two other children. This is at the instigation of her father who has mobilized six men-some of them Ms. Riak’s relatives- to forcibly take her to South Sudan-a country she has not seen she was five years old. Her crime: getting into a relationship with a Kenyan man.
A South Sudanese who has been residing in Kenya for more than 22 years has been abducted in Nairobi and is being trafficked against her will on the firm instructions of her father who is a senior SPLA military officer based in Nairobi.
Riak Chagai Atem, a 34 year old single mother of three was lured by a family member from the Kasarani home where she helps take of her aging and ailing mother. On reaching Nakuru where her first born sister lives, she was forcibly frogmarched to the country bus station where she bundled into a Kakuma bus en route to Juba, South Sudan. That was on Saturday, September 27, 2014. Earlier the six burly male relatives beat her up accusing her of disobeying her father and bringing shame to the family.
Her only crime appears to be stubbornly refusing to give up a romantic relationship with a Kenyan man she fell in love with in December 2013. Her abduction is the culmination of a litany of beatings, psychological harassment, confinement and isolation she has endured at the hands of her father who is a General in the South Sudanese army and wields considereable clout within the higher echelons of Juba government circles by virtues of the fact that he is one of the venerated “ old historicals” who is credited as part of the nucleus that formed the SPLM and unleashed the first rebel attack on the then Nimeiri regime.
A very conservative disciplinarian, General Chagai Atem is a polygamist with seven different spouses. He abandoned Riak’s mother close to two decades ago but insists on controlling his brood of close to forty offspring. If he had his way he would marry off her daughter to another scion of South Sudanese society. He is quite incensed that her daughter has persisted in seeing her Kenyan lover. Three months ago after another round of beatings he warned Riak darkly that he had the means of shipping his daugher back to Sudan.
This is not an idle boast. In December Riak had to flee the airport when her father drove her there, ticket in tow, determined to accompany his daughter to Juba.
Riak Chagai Atem contacted this writer-who has previously accompanied her to the offices of concerned human rights lawyers like Kituo & NCHRDD who had heard of her plight. She was quite frightened. She informed the writer of her beatings the previous night; how she had adamantly refused to board an earlier bus and how she first locked up in a guest house in Kitale before being tken to Eldoret she is being confined. She appeals urgently for an intervention. She explained that she had been whisked from Nairobi a couple days ago without getting a chance to carry any money. She is with her youngest son, Santos, 3 who is severely traumatized.
She is quite wary about approaching a family member for assistance because the few who are not in South Sudan or Kenya are stuck in Canada, USA and Australia and are all cowed by their strictures of the family patriarch, her father.
She is convinced that more harm may befall her, especially if her kidnappers manage to smuggle her across the border.
Riak Chagai Atem is a certified, bona fide refugee who is in Kenya under the aegis of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees ever since she arrived in Kakuma Camp in 1992 . She is therefore protected under Kenyan, African Union laws. It is illegal to abduct and traffic human beings. Physical assault, psychological anguish and mental torture violate many human rights canons and principles.
Her situation is likely to be aggravated if there are no urgent interventions from concerned individuals.
This is an urgent appeal to the concerned authorities in Kenya and South Sudan as well as human rights groups, the UNHCR, lawyers and faith groups to step in and rescue Riak Chagai Atem from this anguish.