Off the wire
• Urgent: Casualties reported in clashes between Guinean police and protesters  • Champions League derby is balanced 50-50, Ancelotti says  • Kenyan pavilion official defends choice of Chinese artists at Venice Biennale  • City council votes in favor of Paris' bid for 2024 Olympics (updated 2)  • Roundup: Taliban bombing kills 2 Afghan policemen, security forces kill 12 militants  • Wild panda spotted in southwest China  • Morocco condemns bombing attack on its embassy in Tripoli  • China's rail freight volume down 9 pct  • At least 15 killed in wildfires in southern Russia  • Audi's sales figures in March hit new single-month record  
You are here: 　 Home

UNHCR seeks solution on refugees in Kenya

Xinhua, April 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

The UN refugee agency said Monday it is seeking an amicable solution with Kenya after the East African nation said gave it a three-month notice to close the world's largest refugee camp in the country's northern region.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Kenya spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera said the UN agency will have discussions with the government to resolve the issue of Somali refugees living in Dadaab refugee camp.

Nyabera also confirmed that the UNHCR has not received formal request from the government to relocate more than 350,000 refugees living in Dadaab camp as demanded by Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday.

"We have not received official notification from the government. We are aware of the challenges Kenya has been facing in hosting the refugees, but we are also concerned about the humanitarian consequences of such relocation," Nyabera told Xinhua by telephone.

"We hope to reach an amicable solution that will take the concerns of the government, and at the same time also take the interests of the refugees living in Dadaab," he added.

Nyabera said the tripartite agreement which was signed by Kenya, Somalia and UNHCR in November 2013 establishes a legal framework and other support for Somali refugees in Kenya who might eventually wish to return to their homeland.

"The tripartite agreement we signed with Kenya, Somalia is very clear that refugees can only return back to their country voluntarily. We can only facilitate returns when refugees can go back in a safe and sustainable manner," he said.

Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday said the government has given the UNHCR three months to relocate the Dadaab refugee camp from Kenya to Somalia.

The deputy president's remarks came in the wake of terror attacks at the Garissa University College which left 148 people dead, mostly students.

More than 350,000 Somali refugees live in the Dadaab complex in northern Kenya near the border with Somalia. The authorities in the East African nation accuse Somali militants of training and recruiting insurgents inside the camps, which were set up in the early 1990s to accommodate refugees fleeing Somalia's civil war.

Nyabera said the refugees should be allowed to return home if "conditions back home allow them to return." He said more than 50, 000 returned home voluntarily in 2014, adding that the UN refugee agency expects 10,000 to return this year. Endi