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| Africa Horn | ||||||
| Kenya denies abuse of refugees in push to close Somali camp | ||||||
| 2016-09-16 | ||||||
| Kenya reaffirmed on Thursday its plan to close the world’s largest refugee camp by November, rejecting allegations by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that it is harassing and intimidating Somali refugees to return home when it is not safe to do so. The rights group said Kenya is not giving the refugees a real choice between being repatriated or staying,
“Our timeline is November 30th for closure of the camp,” Karanja Kibicho, principal secretary for Kenya’s interior ministry, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We are trying to restore sanity in matters of refugee affairs. We are a sovereign country that is trying to address a security concern and we are as humane as possible.”
Kenya announced in May that it would close Dadaab, home to more than 300,000 mostly Somali refugees, by November, following deadly attacks on Kenyan soil by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab. The government says al Shabaab has used the camp as a recruiting ground for its attacks. Kenya softened its stance in June, following an outcry from rights groups who said much of Somalia was not yet safe for return, and agreed a goal of halving Dadaab’s population by the end of 2016. Kibicho’s comments suggest the government is sticking to its original November deadline. There has been a surge in departures from Dadaab in recent months with more than 24,000 refugees returning to Somalia since December 2014, the United Nations said.
Community leaders told HRW that a government official intimidated them at a meeting in July. “When I tried to tell the (official) that people can’t go back, that it is not as safe as he suggests, he pointed his finger at me and told me to sit down,” HRW quoted one elder as saying. “He told me to pick up a gun and defend my country … After that meeting, people began to really worry that we would be put into lorries come November.”
“These people are voluntarily taking themselves (home)…” Kibicho said. “We are a country that respects our obligations to the international conventions.” Refugees who choose not to return to Somalia will be taken to Kakuma, he said, referring to Kenya’s second refugee camp, which mostly hosts people fleeing war in South Sudan.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 I don't expect the wimmin and children to pick up a gun, but if you're a military aged man, you have a job to do, and it isn't fleeing to a refugee camp in Kenya or relocation center in Germany. Dunno. I think some of them think it really is their job to go to Germany. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2016-09-16 17:07 |