66 'illegal' immigrants arrested at roadblock

Mbeya. Police in Mbeya have arrested 66 suspected illegal immigrants from Ethiopia.

Regional Police Commander Dhahir Kidavashari told The Citizen on Sunday yesterday that the 66 were arrested Friday in Isonje suburb on the outskirts of the city.

They were packed in a single Toyota Fuso truck. According to Mr Kidavashari, the police acted on a tip-off from members of the public.

“After gathering all the intelligence, including the direction the truck was travelling to, our patrol squad manned a roadblock in Isonje where they stopped the vehicle with the suspects. They all Ethiopian males,” he said.

They have since been handed over to the Immigration Department, which has the mandate to work on the case. Mr Kidavashari said the regional police are also working on dismantling a ring of human traffickers on the Tanzania/Malawai border in the new region of Songwe, which used to be part of Mbeya.

“There is a big network of traffickers in our region, and it has been operating for years; we will continue to hunt them down and their colleagues in the neighbouring regions,” he said. Mbeya regional immigration officer Marco Matiko said they are investigating the latest incident.

“They are all in our custody, we’re questioning them, and once we have something tangible we will share it with the public,” he said.

It’s the first major arrest of suspected illegal immigrants since the beginning of the year, according to the Immigration Department.