NAIROBI, Kenya
Kenya said on Thursday April 29 it had told the United Nations it will shut by June 2022 two camps holding over 430,000 refugees who fled from wars in the east and Horn of Africa, adding it planned to repatriate some and give others residency.
The
interior ministry made the announcement on Twitter about five weeks after
ordering the closure of the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps and giving the
United Nations two weeks to present a plan to carry this out.
Kenya's
President Uhuru Kenyatta and U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) chief Filippo Grandi
met on Thursday in Nairobi and a joint team will be formed to finalize and
implement a road map toward the closure of the camps, the U.N. and Kenyan
government said in a joint statement on Thursday.
Kenya
and the UNHCR "agree that refugee camps are not a long-term solution to
forced displacement" and are committed to working together to find
alternative solutions in line with the Global Compact on Refugees, the
statement read.
One
of the two refugee camps in northern Kenya, Dadaab, close to the sensitive
border with war-racked Somalia, was set up in 1991. In 2011, amid famine and
chaos in Somalia, it was the world's largest camp.
Thursday's
announcement appeared to be the decisive step by Kenya after years of discussion
about closing Dadaab.
"Among
the precursory activities in (the government's) roadmap is repatriation of
refugees to countries of origin and socio-economic integration of some of them
through Work/Residence Permits (in Kenya)," the tweet read.
Legal
challenges could follow. Earlier this month, a Kenyan court ruled against the
closure of the camps.
Authorities
in Nairobi first announced their intention to shut the Dadaab camp back in
2016, citing national security concerns over infiltration by militants from the
Somalia-based Islamist group al Shabaab.
Relations
between Kenya and Somalia have deteriorated badly in the past year since
Mogadishu cut diplomatic ties with Nairobi, accusing it of interfering in its
internal affairs.
Kenya
contributes troops to the African Union peacekeeping force deployed in Somalia
to curb the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab that seeks to topple the government. In
a sign of the tense relationship, Somalia said in January it had lost
confidence in Kenyan troops serving in the peacekeeping mission.
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