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Africa Horn
60,000 Somalis return home from Kenya --
2016-04-04
The Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA) says so far 10,000 refugees have been assisted to return home while another 50,000 have spontaneously returned without any assistance.
Get them out of Kogelo village quickly will you. We've got a native son and his family arriving in January !
In February 2016, Kenya launched the enhanced phase of voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees in Kenya.

UNHCR is planning to repatriate 50,000 Somalis this year. “We are trying to plan for a possible 50,000 people (returning) in 2016,” Raouf Mazou, the UNHCR representative to Kenya, told Reuters in Dadaab camp in January.

In December 2015, UNHCR voluntary repatriated about 6,000 Somali refugees from the Dadaab settlement in northeast Kenya to areas in southern Somalia which have been pacified since December 2014.

“In total 5,853 Somali refugees returned home since December 8, 2014, when UNHCR started supporting voluntary return of Somali refugees in Kenya,” UN agency said in its bi-weekly report released in Nairobi.

Following the April 2, 2015, attack at Garissa University College by Al-Shabaab, the Kenya government announced plans to close down the Dadaab refugee camp blamed for habouring militants. Deputy President William Ruto said UNHCR must close the Dadaab refugee complex within three months or “we shall relocate them ourselves.”
I think that's the Kenyan way of 'voluntary' return...
However, the directive was roundly condemned by human rights groups as going against the established international rules pertaining to refugees.
Of course it was condemned. All the way from the finer restaurants in Paris, Geneva and The Hague...
Consequently the government went slow on the directive and has been working with UNHCR to repatriate refugees willing to return home.

Dadaab refugee camp, currently home to some 350,000 people, is the largest settlement in the world. For more than 20 years, it has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled a country embroiled in conflict.
It's almost as if they're Palestinians...
The process of repatriation started in November 2013 following the signing of the Tripartite Agreement on Voluntary Repatriation Programme of Somalia Refugees by the Government of Kenya, The Federal Republic of Somalia and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Kenya is happy to have supported and protected refugees on her soil and will support the integration process of the returnees in their country.”
"And now we're happy that they're leaving!"
Maj Gen (Rtd) Nkaissery said he is confident that since many parts of Somalia have been liberated, secured and stabilised, the country is now much more conducive than ever for return of her citizens.

“We understand the circumstances under which many people from Somalia came to seek refuge in Kenya. Fortunately many of the factors in Somalia that created the influx of refugees into Kenya have positively changed. East or West, everyone knows home is best. It is for these reasons that the Government of Kenya is robustly encouraging Somali refugees to go back home,” said Nkaisserry.
Posted by:Steve White

#2  I was half-wondering why the reports of Somali piracy seemed so low recently.
Posted by: Raj   2016-04-04 16:02  

#1  Voluntary or not, repatriate them before they get too comfortable in Kenya.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2016-04-04 12:31  

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