Kenya has vowed to close the world’s biggest refugee camp within a year and send hundreds of thousands of Somalis back to their war-torn homeland or on to other countries, a plan decried by aid and human rights groups as unsafe, illegal and impractical.
Advertisement
“For reasons of pressing national security that speak to the safety of Kenyans in a context of terrorist and criminal activities, Kenya has commenced the exercise of closing the Dadaab refugee complex”, Nkaissery told reporters in Nairobi.
Joseph Nkaissery said Wednesday that Daadab camp compromises Kenya’s security because it harbors Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamic extremists and is a conduit for smuggling weapons.
“I’m among those who were born in Daadab refugee camp”.
If Kenya moves forward with its plan, it will join a list of countries facing scrutiny over the disregard for the principle of non-refoulement, or sending a refugee back to their country of origin – a list that now includes Australia and some other European countries.
The government had spoken earlier of also closing the Kakuma camp, which mostly houses refugees from the crisis in South Sudan, but it appears to have been given a reprieve because it is not considered a security risk, reports the Guardian.
Kenya has faced a number of terrorist attacks, most notably the Westgate Shopping Mall attacks in Nairobi, which killed 67 civilians, and the Garissa University attacks which took the lives of 152 students.
The settlement on the Kenyan side of the Somali border is home to about 350,000 Somalis and other refugees from different war torn countries across the region.
“Today, there is an established, agreed and effective mechanism in the form of the Tripartite Agreement that serves as the blue print for positive partnership between Kenya, Somalia and the UNHCR for the safe and dignified resettlement of Somali refugees in their home country”.
“Ms Aelbrecht said: “(Doctors Without Borders) is urging the government to reconsider this call, and – alongside the worldwide organisations already present in the camp – to continue to provide humanitarian assistance and ensure acceptable living conditions for the hundreds of thousands of people who desperately need it”.
What’s more, Wells says, in the North, in Kakuma camp, there are presently 2.200 refugees waiting in the reception area which is not built to host large numbers of people so JRS is concerned about health and hygiene conditions there fearing that diseases like cholera could spread.
Close to a dozen global organizations, including Amnesty worldwide, have urged Kenya to reconsider.
Advertisement
About two-thirds of the refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya have fled conflict elsewhere, and they’ve been arriving since the 1990s, according to the U.N. The vast majority are from Somalia, followed by South Sudan and Ethiopia. “Expelling vulnerable Somali refugees at a time Somalia is making internationally recognized progress towards stability and institution building, will only increase the risk of insecurity in the region”, further read the statement.
