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| Africa Horn | ||
| 70,000 refugees at Dadaab willing to return to Somalia | ||
| 2016-09-10 | ||
| About 70,000 Somalia refugees residing in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp are willing to return to their home country by the end of the year, the UN refugee agency revealed on Thursday. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Kenya Assistant Representative in Charge of Protection Catherine Hamon Sharpe said that this figure represents approximately 25 percent of Somalia refugees in Kenya. “We therefore think that the deadline given by the Kenya government to close the Dabaab camp in Nov. is not realistic if the refugees are to be repatriated voluntarily in a dignified and humane manner,” Sharpe said during a panel discussion on refugee issues in Nairobi.
“We are therefore engaging the Kenyan authorities so that they extend the voluntary repatriation agreement that expires in November,” she added. The UN official said that currently 2,000 Somali refugees at the Dabaab transition camp have signed for voluntary repatriations. “However, they can’t leave the camp because the Jubaland (in southern Somalia) officials have refused to receive them,” she said. The Kenyan government decided to shut down the world’s largest refugee camp by the end of this year, citing national security interests.
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| Posted by:Steve White |