Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday gave the United Nations' refugee agency three months to relocate refugees from the Dadaab camp -- the world's largest -- to Somalia, or "we shall relocate them ourselves." "The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa," Ruto said in Nyeri, according to a statement from his office.
On Saturday, a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees officer said the agency had not received any formal request from Kenya's government about moving Dadaab. The U.N. refugee agency manages the Dadaab complex , having set up the first camps there in late 1991 amid Somalia's civil war.
The agency and the governments of both Kenya and Somalia agreed in 2013 on a process for the repatriation of Somali refugees. But that was supposed to be mutually agreed-upon and voluntary, in accordance with the refugees' "freely expressed wish and their relevant knowledge of the conditions" where they'd end
up, according to the pact.
None of those things, it seems, applies now to the move pushed by Ruto on Saturday. It's not clear where he expects the refugees to go, other than somewhere into Somalia and out of Kenya.
Any mass move would be a monumental task, disrupting the already difficult lives of more than 600,000 Somalis who call the camp their home. Simply meeting basic needs is a challenge in the vast complex, which has seen devastating droughts, contagious diseases and other travails that have tested its residents and those trying to help.
Still, as tough as conditions there are, they are seen as a better alternative to life back in Somalia, where Al-Shabaab is based and
has carried out violent attacks for years. DP Ruto must know that things are followed procedurally and he should not act as if he owns the world, he was against Raila's move to relocate the mau settlers and now he wants to relocate the refugees. We should stop playing politics all the time and look on the possible way to solve security issues. It makes no sense to erect 700km perimeter wall as people dies of famine.
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