The Nairobi Connection

He fled the civil war in Somalia in 1991. Ever since he has lived in a dusty camp in northern Kenya, enduring the indignity and poverty of life as a refugee--and dreaming of escape to America or Europe. Never had his hopes soared so high as that afternoon, last summer, when he stood in a Nairobi hotel room fingering the $3,400 packed neatly into the brown envelope tucked inside his pocket. It had taken him months to beg, borrow and save the money that he was about to pay to two United Nations officials sitting across from him. It was a bribe, pure and simple. But Ahmed saw it as his ticket to a better future.

Ahmed had seen dozens of refugees like himself realize their dreams, in just this way. The deal was deceptively straightforward: pay off corrupt officials of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees--the agency charged with resettling thousands who have sought sanctuary in Kenya from the wars and political upheavals of their own countries--then within a few months be whisked away to a new life in the United States, Canada or some other land far from the misery of the here and now. Ahmed knew that what he was doing was illegal. He also knew that it was the only way to achieve what years of going through official channels had failed to. What he did not know was that the UNHCR had recently begun investigating myriad cases such as his--examining, among other alleged abuses, the extraordinary possibility that as many as half of the thousands of refugees resettled by the agency over the past five years had paid bribes totaling hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

NEWSWEEK has learned that East Africans who were not even refugees have been "resettled" by the agency, often after being given phony identities and case histories. Corruption is reportedly so pervasive that refugees are unable to even enter the agency's Nairobi office without forking over baksheesh. "You have to pay 50 shillings just to get inside the waiting room," says Ahmed. "I went to that office every day for three years and never even got an interview."

Daniel Tshitungi, head of the UNHCR in Kenya, acknowledges the "very serious problem." He confirms that four of his staff are suspected of soliciting money from the displaced persons they are paid to assist. The UNHCR's mission is to protect refugees, notes one agency staffer. "The sale of resettlement places is totally contrary to our mandate." But the system almost begs abuse. Roughly 200,000 refugees have flocked from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan to Kenya in recent years, and the United Nations has few options to cope with the crush. Most cannot go home; their houses are gone, or they would be unsafe. Kenya, moreover, has no program for integrating refugees into local society. That leaves resettlement abroad as the last and best hope for most displaced persons--a frail reed considering that last year only 9,300 had such luck. Only 10 countries accept significant numbers of refugees--among them Canada, New Zealand, Australia and a handful of European nations, with the United States taking the most.

Given the stakes, it's small wonder that a cottage industry has sprung up selling these coveted spots. According to refugees, the scam goes like this: "resettlement and protection officers" at the UNHCR work through a network of shadowy middlemen, or brokers. These brokers are notified by UNHCR staff when there is a resettlement quota to fill, then they go out into the camps and find refugees willing to pay. In particular, they target Ethiopians and Somalis like Ahmed, who have friends and family in the West who might have the money.

The UNHCR began receiving complaints about such practices in 1998, and in 1999 the agency began investigating the allegations. UNHCR staff suspected of cooperating with the probe received threats; several were evacuated from Nairobi. Three agency staffers have been relieved of their responsibilities in processing refugee applications for resettlement, according to Tshitungi, but none has been fired. He adds that no further action will be taken until the agency completes its investigation.