Amnesty International on Thursday urged Ukrainian authorities to release about 60 Somali refugees who have gone on a hunger strike to protest against their detention and harassment.
The refugees, who possibly include up to 20 children, have been held in a detention center in western Ukraine since late December, the rights group said. A Ukrainian refugee aid group, Without Borders, says the detainees have been refusing food for more than 10 days.
"Somali nationals in Ukraine have been driven to despair by a vicious cycle of detention and harassment by the police, as well as by an asylum system that fails to protect them," said Heather McGill, Amnesty’s expert on Ukraine.
"Ukraine has an international obligation not to send anybody to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations. The Ukrainian authorities must immediately release all those that they have no practical prospect or principled justification for deporting and ensure that they have access to asylum procedures," she said.
The Interior Ministry declined immediate comment.
Very few Somalis have received asylum in Ukraine. Refugees are detained and held in "deportation centers" for long periods of time even though they cannot be deported; others are routinely beaten and abused by police, refugees and rights groups say.
"Everyone knows — the police, the ministry of internal affairs and the Somalis’ themselves — that they won’t ever be deported. What they need — and are entitled to — is protection, not repeated punishment for fleeing famine and war," McGill said.
Several hundred Somali refugees are estimated to be living in Ukraine, but very few get help from the authorities. Only 30 Somalis were recognized as refugees as of early 2011, while as many as 240 people applied for that status in 2010, according to Without Borders.
