UN refugee agency calls for protection of Somalis ordered to leave Kenya

With concern growing over the fate of more than 8,000 Somalis ordered out of northern Kenya, the UN refugee agency today reiterated its appeal for Somalis to receive international protection.

Earlier this week, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had called upon the Kenyan government to immediately halt the return of Somalis from a border camp in the Mandera area, in the country’s north-east. The Somalis had been at the camp since 17 October and were mainly women, children and the elderly – they had fled there to escape fighting between Al-Shabaab and Ahlu Sunna Wal Janaa forces in the Somali town of Bulla Hawa.

Following the authorities’ orders, most initially moved into the no-man's land between Kenya and Somalia and refused to go further. As of this morning it appears however that some have dispersed, while others are believed to have fled into neighbouring Ethiopia.

“Our staff was in touch with some of the refugees yesterday by phone,” said UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards at a press briefing in Geneva today. “They told us that they were reluctant to move back into Somalia for fear of insecurity, that people were living in the open in shelters made mainly of sticks, and that they were in urgent need of better shelter, food and water.”

Edwards renewed the call made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, to the UNHCR executive committee in October, for Somalis to receive international protection in line with the updated eligibility guidelines that UNHCR issued earlier this year.

UNHCR, in its advice to governments, had made clear that people fleeing central and southern Somalia were at substantial risk and that their international protection needs must be respected.

Earlier this week, noting that Kenya has for many years generously hosted tens of thousands of Somali refugees, UNHCR said that to be forcibly returning people to Somalia now betrays that spirit, places lives at risk and contravenes the principles of non-refoulement – or non forced return – that are contained in Kenya's Constitution, its Refugees Act and in international refugee law.