State seeks to establish status of camp residents

The government has launched an exercise to establish the identity of all residents of Dadaab refugee camp.

This comes in the wake of the enhanced voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees staying in Kenya.

“We are doing something we call unpacking the Daadab refugee camp since it does not only host Somalis but also people from South Sudan and needy Kenyans who have registered themselves as refugees,” said the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

Addressing journalist in Nairobi on Saturday, Mr Grandi said refugees from Southern Sudan camping in Dadaab will be relocated to Kakuma while indigenous Kenyans will be taken back into the Kenyan population.

Mr Grandi said the population of non-Somalis at Daadab was estimated at 60,000.

Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said the exercise will enable authorities to establish the exact number of people in the camps and their true status and identities.

Ms Mohamed said the Dadaab population was expected to reduce by 150,000 individuals by the end of 2016.

But even as Kenya moves to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees, a new wave is expected to arrive from another of Kenya’s war-torn neighbours.

An additional 45,000 South Sudanese is expected to flee to Kenya in the coming months, the United Nations’ food agency predicted on Friday.

If that projection holds true, the number of South Sudanese seeking refuge in Kenya will have reached 102,239 since civil war erupted late in 2013.

Another 50,000 South Sudanese had fled to Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp prior to the outbreak of conflict two-and-a-half years ago.