Human rights groups are criticising the
Kenya government's decision on Friday to close the Dadaab and Kakuma
camps that together hold about half-a-million refugees.
"Due to Kenya's national security
interest, the government has decided that hosting of refugees has to
come to an end," Interior ministry Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho
announced.
"The government acknowledges that
this decision will have adverse effects on the lives of refugees, but
Kenya will no longer be hosting them.”
Lives at risk
Adding emphasis to the announcement, Dr Kibicho said the government had disbanded its Department of Refugee Affairs.
Amnesty International called the decision “reckless”.
The government's move is “an
abdication of its duty to protect the vulnerable and will put thousands
of lives at risk,” declared Muthoni Wanyeki, the rights group's director
for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.
Human Rights Watch challenged the claim that the refugee camps posed threats to Kenya's national security.
Terrorist attacks
“Officials have not provided credible evidence linking Somali refugees to any terrorist attacks in Kenya,” HRW said.
“Human Rights Watch is not aware of convictions of Somali refugees in connection with any attack in Kenya.”
Closing the camps is “illegal,
inhumane and, most probably, impossible,” said Ben Rawlence, author of a
recently published book on life inside Dadaab.
Orderly fashion
“Untangling these cities in an orderly fashion will take years."
The Nairobi announcement set no
specific deadline for shutting the camps, but said it would occur
“within the shortest time possible”.
The government also called on
donors to “expedite” the planned shutdown and “collectively take
responsibility [for the] humanitarian needs that will arise.”
A previous threat
The United Nations, which
administers the two refugee camps did not respond on Friday to requests
for comment, but it was critical of a previous threat by the Kenyan
government to close Dadaab and Kakuma.
A combined total of about 526,000 refugees were living in the Kakuma and Dadaab camps, the UN said on March 31.
Nearly 385,000 were Somalis and close to 100,000 fled to Kenya from South Sudan
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