President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Somalia counterpart, Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, have agreed on a plan to repatriate more than 560,000 Somali refugees from Kenya.
The two heads of state announced at the weekend that they had held fruitful discussions on the matter at State House, Mombasa, and would pursue the agenda further in the coming weeks.
They observed that some peace had been restored in the troubled Horn of Africa state under the leadership of President Mohamed and it was time the refugees returned home to reconstruct the country.
Briefing the media after their closed-door discussions, President Kenyatta said: “We agreed on the need for an ideal and timely return of Somali refugees to their motherland.”
The refugees should go back home “so that they can be part of the reconstruction and stabilisation process,” he said, reaffirming Kenya’s willingness to support Somalia in this process.
President Mohamed said Somalis were grateful for Kenya’s role in restoring peace, including sending her defence force to fight the Al- Shabaab militia.
“There is need for Somali refugees in Kenya to return to Somalia as soon as the time is right and preparations have been properly made,” said the Mr Mohamed.
He said discussions would continue adding that the two states have the best opportunity in two decades to work together to put Somalia’s past behind and help Somalis realise their long cherished dreams of a stable, united and peaceful nation.
Mr Mohamed urged the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) to support Somalia revive its State structures. Somalia refugees have for a long time been the elephant in the room for Kenya.
In December 2012, Kenya ordered all refugees scattered in many urban centres to return to camps following a series of grenade attacks that caused injuries and deaths.
On January 16, the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security wrote to the Ministry of Special Programmes about a plan to round up 18,000 refugees from towns beginning January 21.
(Read: UN rejects Kenya move to confine refugees to camps)
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Kenya had 46,540 registered refugees by the end of 2012 out of which 33,246 were Somali nationals.
In December 2012, Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA) talked of “unbearable and uncontrollable threat to national security” caused by the grenade attacks in streets, churches, buses and business places.
The Doctors Without Borders organisation that runs numerous health care programmes in the refugee camps recently noted that the medical and humanitarian situation at Dadaab was “disastrous, dire and precarious” and it feared consequences of new influx of refugees.
