Thread: The world's largest refugee camp will close in November

Kenya announces Dadaab refugee camp will close by November

• 31 May 2016

Image copyrightREUTERSImage caption
Kenya has set aside $10m (£6.8m) for repatriation

The world's largest refugee camp will close in November, Kenya's Interior Minister Joseph Nkaisserry has announced.

The Dadaab camp in Kenya is home to more than 300,000 Somalis.

Mr Nkaisserry said Kenya would work closely with the UN and the Somali government to repatriate the refugees.

Dadaab was set up in 1991 to house families fleeing conflict in Somalia, and some people have been living there for more than 20 years.

Kenya says it wants to close the camp over security concerns, saying attacks on its soil have been planned there.

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Mr Nkaisserry said the decision was final.
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Media caption Inside Dadaab - the world's biggest refugee camp Kenya did not follow through on a previous threat to close down the camp, made last April following the deadly attack by Somali militant group al-Shabab on a university 100km (62 miles) away.

The al-Qaeda linked group has staged several attacks on Kenya in recent years.

Kenya has set aside $10m (£6.8m) for repatriation, which Mr Nkaisserry insisted would carried out in a humane manner.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36418604

Kenya to miss November deadline to close Dadaab refugee camp

Nov. 15, 2016, 3:00 am
By REUTERS

An aerial picture shows the market section of the Hagadera camp in Dadaab near the Kenya-Somalia border, May 8, 2015. Kenya's government threatened to close the Dadaab refugee camp, which with about 350,000 Somali refugees is the world's biggest refugee camp, as a security risk. Photo Reuters


Kenya will not meet its deadline to close a sprawling Somali refugee camp by the end of November because Somalia could not yet guarantee basic social services for returning refugees, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

"On the question of deadline, definitely we will not meet that deadline," the spokesman, Mwenda Njoka, told Reuters in the first Kenyan public acknowledgement that it would be missed.

Experts have long said Kenya's plan to shut down Dadaab camp - home to more than half a million people at its height a few years ago - by that date was impractical.

Njoka said the camp -the world's largest - now had about 250,000 people. That compares to an estimated 350,000 people which U.N. officials had said inhabited the camp in northeast Kenya at the start of the year.

Experts have said many Somalis who fled conflict would not voluntarily return until security had improved and more basic services, such as schools and clinics, were in place. Somalia's government is still battling an Islamist insurgency.

"We will continue engaging with the Federal Government of Somalia, the government of Jubbaland, with a view to seeing how we can be able to continue the process, and hopefully faster," he said. Jubbaland lies near Kenya's border.

Kenya had said it was determined to shut the camp, where some older residents have lived for quarter of a century and some younger ones have lived all their lives, because of a security threat. Kenya has faced a spate of attacks by Somali Islamists.

The United Nations and Western states warned Kenya not to forcibly repatriate those who live at the U.N.-run camp. New York-based Human Rights Watch said in September some officials were putting pressure on refugees to leave.

"We feel pained when people say that we are pushing these people out," Njoka said, adding that between May and October more than 30,000 had moved voluntarily.

"If indeed we were coercing them, why would we be having about 250,000 people still there? Wouldn't we already have repatriated all of them?" he said.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and Somali signed a deal on voluntary repatriation in 2013, aiming to close the camp. The so-called tripartite deal expires this month and Njoka said a new deal would have to be negotiated.

While large sections of Somalia were now safe for the refugees to return, they lacked infrastructure, particularly in areas such as Jubbaland, Njoka said, adding: "So that has slowed the process."

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/...-camp_c1455745