Kenya to 'Repatriate' Half a Million Somali Refugees

Kenya plans to “voluntarily” repatriate half a million Somali refugees after it stepped back from doing so earlier this year due to mass international condemnation.

The mass removal of 500,000 people living at the Dadaab refugee complex, the world’s oldest and largest refugee site, will be carried out together with the U.N. refugee agency, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaisery said Tuesday.

The plan will allegedly involve maintaining Kenyan military presence in Somalia and establish the necessary infrastructure to cover basic necessities like health services and water supply for returning-refugees, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We have to ensure that the refugees go back to a safe place. That is why we still have our troops inside Somalia to stabilize the country," Nkaissery said.

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The news comes after in May, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta took back his threat to close down the Dadaab refugee complex, allegedly a breeding ground for militancy after it was erected in 1991 when a civil war rocked Somalia forcing hundreds of thousands to flee.

Kenyatta’s threat at the time was in reaction to a mass shooting that left nearly 150 dead at a university in Garissa at the hands of the militant group Al-Shabab in April.

Somali refugees have since been subjected to what they see is “collective punishment,” including systemic ethnic profiling, abuse, extortion and harassment by Kenyan police.

“Police intimidation is part of our daily life. When they see Somali person, they assume that you are illegal. I have paid a lot of money in bribes. They don’t accept that I am legal, even though I have a refugee card. They say it’s fake and demand money,” Said Hassan Anteno, told the New Statesman back in May.

Some 45,000 Somali refugees have already repatriated in the last two years from the Dadaab refugee camp according to Kenyan officials.