Amina Mohamed responds to questions on ethnic Somalis facing discrimination in Kenya, and the war against al-Shabab.
Amina Mohamed, born to an ethnic Somali family, has been Kenya’s foreign minister for three years [File: Feisal Omar/Reuters]
Reports that suggest ethnic Somalis living in Kenya are being increasingly targeted, detained, and tortured are entirely false, the country’s foreign minister says.
In an interview with Al Jazeera’s UpFront ahead of Kenya’s presidential elections in 2017, Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed also addressed the repatriation of Somali refugees, corruption allegations, and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
On the issue of Somalis in Kenya, UpFront host Mehdi Hasan pointed out that many groups – including key ally the United States – are alarmed at what is seen as an increase in torture, harassment, and the detainment of ethnic Somalis.
Mohamed denied hearing about reports – by the US State Department and Human Rights Watch – that raised abuse allegations of Somalis prior to appearing on UpFront, saying, therefore, she couldn’t verify such claims.
Answering whether the Kenyan government is repatriating Somali refugees – some of whom have lived in the Dadaab camp for almost 25 years – she said: “We are not violating any obligations. If we were, the whole world would have come down like a tonne of bricks right on our heads.