Kenyans repatriated from Uganda camp yearning to go back

Ms Eunice Wairimu was a refugee in Uganda for seven years until May 5 when she returned to Kenya.

And barely a month since returning, Ms Wairimu wants to return to Kiryadongo Refugee Settlement.

She was one of the 1,231 refugees in the last batch of Kenyans to leave the camp and she believes she made a bad decision.

The 62-year-old did not return to Eldoret where her two children were burnt in a church and has settled in Lamu instead. However, she doesn’t think she can cope with life without the assistance she had been receiving as a refugee.

Ms Wairimu is not alone. Ms Ann Muthoni too, believes returning to Kenya was a bad idea. She says life was good for her in Uganda.

At Kiryadongo where the Kenyans were housed after fleeing the 2008 post-election violence, Ms Muthoni and other Kenyans were given plots to cultivate.

SHOP WAS LOOTED

“I had grown crops and reared 100 chickens and a few goats. I regret selling them at a throwaway price to return to Kenya,” she said.

Ms Muthoni has rented a house in Lamu County and wants to start life afresh — far from Mumias town where her shoe shop was looted in the height of the chaos that followed a disputed General Election in December 2007.

But 11 families are still weighing their options and are camping at the Bridge of Hope Children’s Homein Gilgil.

The families told the Sunday Nation that most households got between Sh100,000 and Sh150,000 from the government to facilitate their settling down. But they money, they say, is too little.

“The money is not enough for people to sustain themselves but we are trying to pool resources, however meagre, to get land and build,” said Mr John Njoroge, a pastor and a father of five.

Seven other families bought an acre of land at Malaba on Tuesday after pooling funds.

Resettling  is one of the headaches that returnees face as they seek wean themselves from the protection of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).

They say the government promised them lot of goodies ahead of their return — among them resettlement land — which they say was never to be. 

They say that Nairobi has not honoured a memorandum of understanding it signed with Kampala and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on March 24, 2015.

In the agreement seen by Sunday Nation, the Kenyan government promised to facilitate a return to their land.

“The government of Kenya shall support the returnees in as far as possible to return to former land, housing and property and if not possible offer alternative support,” part of the agreement reads.

The refugees say what the government did was not what it promised.

“We were paid Sh100,000 for family of one to three members and Sh150,000 for a family of four members and above. This was insufficient as we wanted the government to facilitate us like it did for  IDPs who were given Sh400,000 per household and others were given land,” said Mr Njoroge.

The government, however says it has done all it can to ensure the returnees live comfortably.

According to Mr Harun Komen, the acting commissioner of refugee affairs at the Interior ministry, there were various categories of victims of the post-poll chaos and each was given a different package.