Tanzania: 80 Ethiopian migrants arrested

Some eighty Ethiopian migrants have been arrested by Tanzanian authorities in a major crackdown South of the country.

The incident happened on the border with Malawi, officials said.

Most of the migrants were dehydrated and in a bad condition when they were rounded up, local Police said.

“After catching them, we had to have a team of nurses to put them on drips, they were starving, very weak, they were lying on top of each other in that lorry. We had to give them first aid and feed them with porridge before bringing them to Iringa town,” Peter Kakamba, Regional Commander said

Tanzania and Malawi have become key vehicles or dumping grounds for staging posts for people fleeing drought and conflict in countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia, a good number of which may also be trying to enter into South Africa.

Last year, some 100 illegal Ethiopian migrants were arrested in a similar exercise. In 2012, forty illegal migrants from Ethiopia were also found dead after they suffocated inside a truck transporting them.