Police in Garissa’s Dadaab refugee camp get new vehicles

Police in Dadaab refugee camp, Garissa County, have received a major boost after they got 10 new Toyota Land Cruisers, in a bid to fight terrorism that has been blamed on insecurity in the sprawling camp.

Speaking while flagging off the fleet at the regional headquarters, Regional Coordinator Mohamud Saleh said the vehicles will go a long way in helping in the mobility of police officers when responding to and containing terror activities in the refugee camps.

He said the government faced social, economic, environmental as well as serious security challenges from the refugees in Dadaab due to what he said was its proximity to Somalia.

He added that many criminals had taken the camp as a safe haven.

“The government of Kenya in partnership with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is deploying these vehicles that will go a long way in securing the host community and the refugees.

“We also expect more vehicles to be deployed because about 4,000 refugees live in the five camps,” he told journalists.

The regional boss said although some refugees had returned to Somalia’s regions where peace had returned, still a big number of refugees were coming into the camps especially from where there was instability in the war-ravaged Somalia.

HAVEN FOR TERROR SUSPECTS

The government has maintained that the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp has been a safe haven for terrorists and their sympathisers who planned attacks from there.

Mr Saleh said there has not been any terrorism incidents in the last 10 months in North Eastern Kenya after the worst terrorist attack on Garissa University College that left 147 dead among them students of the institution.

This, he said, had been attributed to better coordination between the police and the public.

“Refugees and the host communities have been of great help in timely sharing of information that has seen the arrest of many terror suspects and seizure of weapons.

“We have also degraded their cells, thanks to public participation in security matters,” noted Mr Saleh.

“We don’t entirely blame the refugees, save for some criminals who are hiding among them. But we assure them that we are going to smoke them out,” he added.

The flagging off of the vehicles, which were assigned to regular and Administration Police, was overseen by the UNHCR country representative Rauf Mazou, Garissa Deputy Governor Abdullahi Hussein and other senior national and county government officials.

POLITICAL SUPPORT

“The political leadership in NE and the county governments of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera has been supportive as far as security is concerned.

“The government will ensure that attacks similar to Garissa University and Westgate, never happen again. We are on top of things,” said Mr Saleh, who is hailed for eradicating the infamous Shifta menace from the region.

Mr Mazou paid tribute to the Kenyan government for hosting thousands of refugees, saying the United Nations will give necessary support to the government in fighting insecurity in the country.

He also thanked the county governments for supporting the refugees in the county.

Deputy Governor Abdullahi Hussein said insecurity had affected the county adding that since the appointment of the regional coordinator, calm had returned to the region.

Mr Hussein appealed to UNHCR to assist the host communities in other services other than security, saying there were challenges that arose in health and other sectors.