The Kenyan government is warming up to closing down all the refugee camps located in different counties across the country by next year, a report issued by Madecins Sans Frontieres has revealed.
According to the report, thousands of refugees, mainly Somali nationals, are worrying over the insecurity with the countdown to the deadline continuing.
The MSF report called for a sustainable urgent solution for refugees in the Dadaab camp, who risk being disadvantaged by the turn of events.
MSF Head of Mission in Kenya, Dana Krause, said many refugees who have been trapped in the camps for three decades face a decline in humanitarian assistance and limited options for dignified lives.
“The planned closure of the camps in June 2022 should be an opportunity to accelerate the process of finding lasting solutions for refugees,” Krause said.
MSF called on Kenya and its international partners to live up to the commitments made in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees by allowing Somali refugees to integrate into Kenyan society or to be resettled abroad.
The report reveals that the number of refugees returning voluntarily from Kenya to Somalia has fallen sharply over the past three years, from over 7,500 in 2018 to less than 200 in 2020, according to UNHCR.
Krause said the fall in the number of returnees coincides with rising violence, displacement, and drought within Somalia.
Meanwhile, resettlement offers from rich countries have largely dried up, leaving refugees with little choice but to stay in Kenya, where they have limited rights. Refugees in Dadaab are currently barred from working, travelling, or studying outside the camps.
According to Krause, the recent signing into law of Kenya’s refugee bill could provide a chance for greater integration of refugees within the country, but it will depend on it being implemented broadly to include all refugees, including Somalis.
Integration call
“Kenya now has a simple choice between letting refugees slide further into precariousness, or to champion their rights by offering them the chance to study, work and move freely,” he said.
“Donor countries must share responsibility by increasing development assistance to Kenya so that it can ensure refugees have access to public services,” he added.
MSF’s project coordinator in Dagahaley— one of the three camps that make up Dadaab Refugee Camp—Jeroen Matthys said the plan to close the camps has already caused humanitarian assistance to plummet, with the World Food Programme warning in September that it may be forced to stop distributing food rations altogether by the end of this year if more funding does not arrive.
He said what they fear most is the closing of the camps without offering solutions to refugees that could result in a humanitarian disaster.
“It is vital that refugees have uninterrupted access to humanitarian assistance throughout the camp closure process and until they have certainty about their future and can become self-reliant,” he said.
‘‘Kenya has remained generous in hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees for years, and as they mark the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention this year, Kenya should seize this opportunity to turn the tide and find lasting solutions that have the interests of refugees at their heart,’’ said Karause, Head of MSF Mission in Kenya.
In March 2021, the country’s Cabinet Secretary for Interior, Dr Fred Matiang’i, and his docket Principal Secretary, Dr Karanja Kibicho, issued a directive to Kenya’s UNHCR representative, Fathiaa Abdalla, to close the Kakuma and Daadab camps.
Over 100,000 South Sudanese refugees reside in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, and they could face an uncertain future after the Kenyan government petitioned the UN for a plan to close camps.
The Kenyan government has lately been pushing for the closure of the two refugee camps, arguing that they have become coordination points for the Al-Shabaab terrorist group from Somalia.
As of March 31, 2019, UNHCR estimated that Daadab camp—which is situated in Garissa County next to Kenya’s border with Somalia—hosted 210,556 refugees, of whom 202,381 were from Somalia. The population in the camp has been growing due to the famine, insecurity, and harsh living conditions in Somalia.
The influx of the population into the camp has often raised public outcry as the Kenyan government argues that most criminal elements have found solace in the camp, which they use to launch their activities.
At the time, the Kakuma refugee camp hosted 149,967 people, where 80,567 (53.7 per cent) were from South Sudan, while the others were from other countries like Somalia, DRC, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Burundi.
[Additiuonal reportage by Japheth Ogila].