Kenyan court orders government to reopen asylum registration for Eritreans and Ethiopians
The High Court in Nairobi found that a 2025 ban on registering Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers was unlawful and discriminated against them by national origin.
By Eyob Hadgu · 28 October 2026
Asylum seekers wait outside a court in Nairobi, shown in an illustration. The ruling came from Kenya's High Court. (Illustration)
Kenya's High Court has ordered the government to reopen asylum registration for Eritreans and Ethiopians fleeing conflict, finding that a blanket ban on registering them was unlawful and discriminatory, Nation Africa reported.
Justice Gregory Mutai ruled that a measure leaving a class of people undocumented "threatens their freedom and security and fails to respect their inherent dignity."
The 2025 suspension
On 31 July 2025, Kenya's Acting Commissioner for Refugee Affairs suspended registrations through a memorandum titled "Temporary Suspension of Selected Services." The government cited trafficking, smuggling, national security and abuse of the asylum system.
The memorandum contained four directives. It stopped the registration of Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers. It suspended applications for exemptions, address changes and data transfers by refugees seeking to live outside designated areas. It barred the registration of "onward movers," people who had previously sought asylum elsewhere. And it limited asylum services in Nairobi to the General Mathenge field offices.
Refugee Legal Networks, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the Refugee Consortium of Kenya, Kituo Cha Sheria and Sanctuary Foundation challenged the measures in a petition filed in September 2025.
What the court found
The court ruled that the first three directives were issued without legal authority and declared them void. It found that the ban on Eritrean and Ethiopian registration discriminated on the basis of national origin, and that the government breached the right to fair administrative action by giving no prior notice, reasons or hearing.
It also found that a previous asylum claim does not automatically bar a person from registering under Kenya's Refugees Act, 2021.
The Commissioner for Refugee Affairs and the Interior Ministry must now resume registering applications, assess onward movers individually, and decide exemption, address-change and data-transfer requests on their merits. The government has 60 days to file a compliance report.
A measure that leaves a class of people undocumented "threatens their freedom and security and fails to respect their inherent dignity."
What the ruling does not do
The judgment does not automatically grant anyone refugee status, and it does not stop security screening, Nation Africa reported. Authorities can still verify identities, assess security concerns and prosecute traffickers and smugglers.
This report draws on reporting by Nation Africa.
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