POPULATION-KENYA: Fewer Refugees

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Dec 15 1997 (IPS) - The number of refugees in Kenya, long regarded as a haven for fugitives from the troubled Horn of Africa, has been shrinking as more and more people return to their home countries.

“Five years ago, the refugee population in this country was approaching half a million, mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. Those numbers have dropped tremendously over the past years as the situation in the region stabilised, with more than 260,000 refugees leaving the country,” said Yvette Stevens of the U.N. refugee agency.

Stevens, who is the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) here, said Kenya now sheltered only about 177,000 refugees.

“UNHCR is happy to have seen the majority of the refugees return home, and we will continue repatriation operations so that the remaining refugees might go back to take part in rebuilding their homelands,” she said.

Stevens, who is in charge of Kenya and Somalia, told journalists here over the weekend that once the heavy rains and flooding in north-eastern Kenya cease, the UNHCR will in the coming months organise repatriations to north-eastern Somalia (the breakaway Republic of Somaliland) and Ethiopia.

Since late 1992, the UNHCR representative said, UNHCR’s cross- border operation has assisted 115,051 Somali refugees to return from Kenya, “and we stand ready to help other refugees to go back to their homelands”.

The repatriation has been hindered by floods in north-eastern Kenya, on the border with Somalia and Ethiopia, which have affected refugee camps. One of them, Ifo, is almost 75 percent flooded, with people walking in 15 centimetres of water, according to a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-Doctors Without Borders) team operating in the area.

MSF also said, in a statement made available to IPS on Monday that Dagahaley camp, located in the same province, was one-third flooded. “In the last week, 400 displaced families settled in and around the transit camps which are now also flooded, they have to move again,” said the statement.

The eventual return to their countries — mainly Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia — of the refugees left in Kenya would likely please some officials here, who have accused them of engaging in acts of banditry and lawlessness.

Recently, President Daniel arap Moi warned that refugees in three locations — Dadaab, Garissa and Kakuma — would be relocated to Somalia and Sudan if they refused to surrender their guns. He called upon the UNHCR to allow Kenyan security personnel into camps to search for weapons and said the refugees were abusing Kenyan hospitality by indulging in acts of lawlessness.

“We have been very generous to the refugees but they are treating us in an unfriendly manner,” he said.

Moi’s statement followed that of a Cabinet Minister, Francis Lotodo, who said he was alarmed by recent conflicts in some camps between rival refugee groups.

He said Kenya wished to avoid a situation where a visiting head of state is assassinated on its territory by his enemies masquerading as refugees. He was referring to the 1995 attempt on the life of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt by Islamic fundmentalists. The attack took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

While thousands of refugees have returned home from Kenya in recent years, Stevens said the situation in the rest of Africa was still far from satisfactory.

“Africa is particularly burdened, with the world’s largest number of refugees — 4.3 million — and the world’s greatest number of people displaced within their own countries, some 16 million — making a total of more than 20 million Africans homeless,” she said.

Those figures, compiled in a new book ‘State of the World’s Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda’, include people from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea and Congo-Brazzaville.

“‘State of the World’s Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda,’ launched by the UNHCR last week, is a book that I hope will help us all find a way to solve the tragedy of war and conflict that has forced 20 million Africans from their homes,” said Stevens.