Kenya’s plan to close two camps worries refugees

04/04/2021 Ethiopia, World



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The Kenyan Interior Ministry’s announcement last week of its intention to close two major camps has increased uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of refugees, leaving many of them in distress.

“I am not ready to be repatriated to Somalia,” said Muslima Abdullahi, an 80-year-old woman living in Hagadera, part of the Dadaab refugee complex in northeastern Kenya.

“I have nine orphaned children here,” he added. Years ago, terrified of insecurity, she left her homeland and now she is wary of returning. “They have taken away my house. I have no property or livestock. I have no work ahead of me. I am not prepared for the process” of repatriation.

Ready or not, the Kenyan government says she and other refugees will have no choice but to leave the country. On March 24, Interior Minister Fred Matiangi announced that Kenya had given the UN Refugee Agency 14 days to present a plan to close the Dadaab and Kakuma camps.

Kenya orders closure of two refugee camps, gives UNHCR deadline for instructions

The Dadaab, Kakuma camps are home to more than 410,000 refugees, many of whom fled the conflict in Somalia.

There would be “no place for further negotiations,” said Matigi’s official Twitter account.

CS @FredMatiangi issues UNHCR a 14-day ultimatum to have a roadmap on the final closure of the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps. He says there is no room for further negotiations. pic.twitter.com/8z3yLMjzgD

– Ministry of the Interior (@InteriorKE) March 24, 2021

The Dadaab and Kakuma camps, both located in northern Kenya, together host more than 410,000 refugees and asylum seekers. More than half of its population comes from Somalia and about a quarter from South Sudan. The rest come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan and other parts of the region.

Abdullahi Osman Haji was one of the first refugees to arrive in Dadaab almost 30 years ago, driven out of Somalia by the civil war. She got married in the camp and has been raising 12 children there. He longs for Somalia, but considers it unrealistic, given its fragile government and the constant threat of terrorist attacks from al-Shabab.

“The closure of the camps will have [an] adverse impact on us, “Haji said of the refugees.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shares that concern. It issued a statement last week saying the decision would affect “the protection of refugees in Kenya, including in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

UNHCR said it was ready to support the Kenyan government in strengthening ongoing efforts “to find solutions that are orderly, sustainable and respect the rights of refugees.”

Kenya’s announcement came with no explanation as to why it is seeking to close the fields now. The VOA made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to obtain comment from Kenyan officials.

The Nairobi government in 2016 had called for the closure of Dadaab, after intelligence reports indicated that two major al-Shabab attacks in 2013 and 2015 had involved participants inside the camp, but no evidence linking to the camps with al-Shabab. Kenya’s High Court ruled in early 2017 that closing the camp would be unconstitutional.

Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, Mohamud Ahmed Nur, accuses Kenya of politicizing refugee affairs. He maintains that Kenya’s ultimatum on the fields “is due to the maritime dispute.”

That border disagreement, festering for years, is over control of a 100,000 square kilometer stretch of the Indian Ocean, which contains a large number of fish in its waters and possible deposits of oil and gas underneath. The case reached the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) in mid-March, although Kenya declined to attend the week-long hearing. The ICJ, the highest court in the United Nations, could take months to reach a decision.

UN court opens maritime dispute hearing without Kenya

Kenyan government withdrew from long-awaited hearing on maritime dispute with Somalia

Aden Barre Duale, a legislator and former majority leader in the Kenyan National Assembly, as well as an ethnic Somali, believes that the maritime dispute may have been a factor in his government’s call for the closure of the field. But it does not support the measure.

“This case is not legal, it cannot be implemented,” Duale said.

It represents the northeast area of ​​Kenya in which Dadaab is located. Its constituents and “its leaders, religious leaders … have no problem with the Somali community.”

Financial stress

The Dadaab and Kakuma camps opened in the 1990s, offering UNHCR-run shelters to people fleeing civil wars and conflicts in Somalia and Sudan. Another wave of Somalis arrived in Kenya in 2011, driven from their homeland by drought and increasing their numbers to nearly half a million. The number of refugees in Dadaab was reduced to the current figure of 230,000 after a 2013 agreement between Kenya, Somalia and UNHCR that supports refugees returning voluntarily to Somalia.

UNHCR refugee programs in Kenya and elsewhere are feeling the strain of underfunding, Glenn Jusnes, UNHCR spokesperson in Kenya, told VOA in an email response.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already dire humanitarian needs globally, particularly in low- and middle-income countries that currently host more than 85% of the world’s refugees,” he wrote.

The related economic slowdown has hit. In calendar year 2020, UNHCR Kenya received $ 94 million, some $ 70 million less than it had requested, Jusnes said. By 2021, it had received approximately $ 33 million as of March 9, leaving a funding gap of more than $ 116 million.