The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has requested Kenya to enhance the security of Dadaab refugee camp as deliberations on the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia gets under way.
The request was made to President Uhuru Kenyatta today by the High Commissioner of UNHCR, Antonio Guterres, at State House, Nairobi. Mr Guterres said the agency has already identified eight districts in Somalia where the refugees could be resettled.
Mr Guterres said deployment of special police units will control infiltration by criminal and terror networks in the vast refugee camp. “From experience, when GSU officers were deployed to the camps in the past, security improved and we request for the deployment of sufficient numbers of security personnel especially the GSU to Dadaab,” said Mr Guterres.
Mr Guterres was in Nairobi to hold talks with President Kenyatta on the issue of the refugee camps and the government’s call for the immediate repatriation of refugees from Somalia. The UNHCR chief agreed with the Kenya government’s position that national security cannot be relegated when Kenya was facing constant threats. He, however, said that the process has to be done in an organised manner that does not compound regional security problems.
President Kenyatta said Kenya will continue fulfilling its international obligations but the sense of urgency to repatriate the refugees has been necessitated by the security threats facing Kenyans. “We want the world to understand that the security of our people and their property cannot be relegated to the bottom of our priority list,” he said.
The UNHCR boss is set to travel to Somalia as the refugee agency gets on with the plans for the eventual repatriation of the refugees.
