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60 victims of human trafficking rescued in Nairobi


Police detectives in Nairobi on Thursday rescued 60 victims of human trafficking who were being held at an apartment in Tassia estate.

The sleuths said that the victims were en-route for sale as human slaves, overseas.

The detectives based at DCI’s Transnational and Organized Crime Unit, who were acting on intelligence on a scrupulous crackdown on illegal immigrants, traced the victims to a residential apartment within Tassia in Embakasi.

In a statement, the police said that after securing the perimeter of the premise, the perceptive officers gained entry into the apartment, only to be welcomed with hysterical faces of the victims, inhumanely bundled up in one room.

The victims aged between 14 to 50 years were being trafficked from two countries neighboring Kenya to the north against their will.

“Upon further inquiries, it was established that the 60 victims had been ferried to the location temporarily, as the traffickers sought alternative ways of transporting them outside the country undetected,” the police statement reads.

During the operation, three suspects were arrested on suspicion of being part of a larger human trafficking syndicate operating across the Horn of Africa. The three were identified as Mohammed Omar Aden, 29, Halima Mohammed Osman, 43, and 23-year-old Sala Yusuf.

The victims and the suspects are currently being held at different police stations within the county pending legal procedures.

Any form of human tracking is prohibited in Kenya. Last year, the Shanzu Law Court delivered a landmark ruling that found a prominent businessman guilty of trafficking 12 Nepalese women and girls into Kenya and sentenced him to 60 years in prison.