LILONGWE (Pana) -At least 80 Ethiopian nationals have been arrested in the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, police said on Friday.

‘Yes, we have arrested these Ethiopians as they could not explain why they were in Malawi,’ said Central Region police spokesman John Namalenga.

Namalenga said after interrogation the Ethiopians said they had hitch-hiked from Tanzania and the truck driver dropped them at Kaphiri Trading Centre in Lilongwe. He said they wanted to travel further to South Africa in search for jobs.

‘We found them just loitering around looking very weak because of days without food,’ he said.

The police publicist said the Ethiopians had since been taken to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in the central district of Dowa where other refugees and asylum seekers were kept. The camp is run jointly by the Malawi Government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Malawi, because of its porous borders, is mainly used as a transit point for economic refugees from the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa seeking greener pastures in South Africa .

They pay huge sums of money to middle-men who use uncharted routes from Tanzania through Malawi and Mozambique into South Africa.