Kenya to Shut Down Two of the World’s Largest Refugee Camps

The Dadaab camp complex, located in Northern Kenya, is home to the second, third, and fourth-largest refugee camps in the world. (Wikimedia Commons)

Kenya’s Ministry of Interior announced that the country will disassemble its two main refugee camps by June 2022, according to an official tweet on April 29, resulting in the relocation or repatriation of more than 430,000 residents.

The country first declared its plans to shut down the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in 2016. They cited suspicions that terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab were recruiting and organizing their attacks there. The Nairobi government referenced intelligence reports indicating two major Al-Shabaab attacks, in 2013 and 2015, were in part carried out by residents of the camp. However, no conclusive evidence was offered to support these accusations. Therefore, in 2017, Kenya's High Court ruled that closing the camp would be unconstitutional. 

Recently, however, the Kenyan government pushed for the United Nations to close their camps soon, or else they would, despite their lack of ownership. Fred Matiang’i, Cabinet Secretary in the Kenyan government, met with representatives from the United Nations on March 24 and essentially issued the organization an ultimatum: they had 14 days to draft a camp closure plan, or the Kenyan government would close the camps themselves.

The Dadaab Camp Complex consists of three sub-camps, the oldest of which was established in 1991. By July 2020, the complex housed almost a quarter-million people. The majority of residents of both the Dadaab and Kakuma camps arrived in 1991 or 2011, driven out of Somalia by civil war and famine respectively. Today, the camps “resemble naturally-grown towns and have developed into commercial hubs connecting north-eastern Kenya and southern Somalia,” indicating the long period of time that these camps have been in operation. 

A voluntary return program was implemented in the Dadaab camps in 2014 after the Tripartite Agreement was signed in 2013 by the Government of Kenya, Somalia, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Their pilot project of consensually repatriating more than 2,500 refugees by June of 2015 was a success, so they continued to pursue and add to it. The UNHCR declared its objective was “to ensure that return to Somalia is taking place in a voluntary, humane, safe and dignified manner.” The organization aims to achieve this goal through Return Help Desks that provide interested camp residents with relevant country information and counseling. Key information is also aired on a local Dadaab-based radio station. So many refugees left the complex by 2015 that Ifo 2 and Kambioos, two camps established to house people during the devastating 2011 famine, were disbanded.

After much controversy and legal action regarding the push to accelerate the camps’ closures, including a temporary 30-day order issued by the Kenyan High Court, safety concerns ultimately dominated their desire to empty the camps immediately. Employees at the UNHCR's office in Nairobi responded to the news of Secretary Matiang'i's initiative by stating their fears regarding the potential impact of the seemingly rushed closures on the protection of the refugees. Most of the camps’ residents originally fled drought and warfare in Somalia. Save the Children’s reports on March 22 clearly indicated that these problems still persisted in the country: three-quarters of the country still lacked safe drinking water and consequently, livestock and crops.

Nonetheless, Matiang’i made it clear to the international community that Kenya is “serious about completing the repatriation program which [they] started in 2016,” and reiterated its “earlier position to close both Dadaab and Kakuma camps by 30th of June, 2022.” While the country’s plans for the camps’ closures have yet to be finalized, Matiang’i has promised free work permits for an unspecified number of refugees from East African countries to integrate into Kenyan communities or free return to their country of origin.