AF-SOOMAALI

New dis­tricts opened in So­ma­lia for vol­un­tary refugee re­turn

Six new dis­tricts have been opened in south­ern So­ma­lia to help en­hance vol­un­tary repa­tri­a­tion of So­mali refugees in Kenya, a tri­par­tite com­mis­sion formed to over­see the re­turn said on Sat­ur­day.

Roughly 350 Somali refugees arrive to the border of Kenyan border town of Liboi, where they are greeted by the International Organization for Migration, about 35 miles from Dadaab camps, August 22, 2011. Most families fleeing Somalia arrive exhausted, hungry, and with little to no belongings after making sometimes a month-long journey on foot. Dadaab, with roughly 400,000 refugees, is the largest refugee camps in the world. The horn of Africa is suffering one of the worst droughts in years, displacing thousands, and killing others through severe malnutrition. In response to the increasing severity of the situation MSF is operating an emergency nutrition intervention in Dadaab.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Kenya, So­ma­lia and UN­HCR said in a joint com­mu­nique that they have also de­cided to ex­tend the pro­vi­sion of re­turn and rein­te­gra­tion as­sis­tance to So­mali refugees to six ad­di­tional dis­tricts in So­ma­lia.

“The newly an­nounced dis­tricts are Mo­gadishu, Af­goye, Balad, Belet Weyne, Jowhar, and Wanle Weyne. This is in ad­di­tion to the ex­ist­ing ar­eas of re­turn Kismayo, Baidoa and Luuq,” says the com­mu­nique re­leased in Nairobi.

The tri­par­tite meet­ing noted that as a re­sult of the ef­forts made by AMI­SOM and So­ma­lia gov­ern­ment forces, ad­di­tional ar­eas are be­ing made ac­ces­si­ble to hu­man­i­tar­ian and de­vel­op­ment as­sis­tance.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­mu­nique, the refugees vol­un­tar­ily re­turn­ing to other parts of So­ma­lia will also be pro­vided with re­turn as­sis­tance in Kenya and upon ar­rival in So­ma­lia. This means that vol­un­tary re­turn sup­port is avail­able to all the 332,749 reg­is­tered So­mali na­tion­als in Dadaab refugee camps.

Kenyan and So­mali gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing UN­HCR, agreed in April to form a tri­par­tite com­mis­sion that will be charged with over­see­ing the repa­tri­a­tion of So­mali refugees at the Dadaab camp.

The for­ma­tion of the com­mis­sion, which is pro­vided for in the tri­par­tite agree­ment signed in Sep­tem­ber 2013, is a re­sult of a meet­ing with So­mali For­eign Min­is­ter and UN­HCR rep­re­sen­ta­tive, among other stake­hold­ers, in Nairobi in April.

Kenya ar­gues that the Dadaab camp, the largest in the world and which is now 24 years old, should be closed as soon as pos­si­ble be­cause it har­bours ter­ror­ist cells.

So far, only 2,060 refugees have vol­un­tar­ily re­turned to So­ma­lia through the tri­par­tite agree­ment even as Kenya says that an­other 50,000 went back on their own.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­mu­nique, a tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee of the com­mis­sion will meet on June 9 to pre­pare a de­tailed re­turn and rein­te­gra­tion strat­egy, ex­pected to be re­viewed and fi­nal­ized by the com­mis­sion on June 30.