Proposed Camp Closure Leaves Somali Refugees’ Lives Uncertain

Somali refugees in the Dadaab refugee camps of Kenya’s Northeastern Province fear insecurity and violence upon return to Somalia if the settlement is dissolved. The Kenyan government vowed to close the settlement by the end of November 2016. The Somali refugee situation is one of the most protracted in the world. Three generations of Somali refugees have now been born in exile. Somalia’s more stable neighbor Kenya is home to the largest concentration of registered Somali refugees. The Dadaab camps in the Garissa District of northeastern Kenya, which were created in 1991 to accommodate 90,000 refugees fleeing war-torn Somalia, now hold instead over 260,000 Somalis. The population reached a record peak in 2011 at nearly 400,000 residents, making it the world’s largest refugee camp at the time.

Restrictive travel and work laws in Kenya, however, do not allow residents of Dadaab to leave the camps without a special movement pass or to become integrated into the Kenyan economy. Long queues for water and food rations and sporadic outbreaks of cholera and measles make life in Dadaab unbearable. According to a survey by the organization Doctors Without Borders , however, 86 percent of Dadaab residents would rather remain than return to Somalia, despite the camp’s living conditions.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared at the 2011 London conference on Somalia that Kenya “can no longer continue carrying the burden,” and has continued to cite national security concerns after the 2013 terrorist attacks on a Nairobi mall. However, his proposed plans to close Dadaab by the end of November 2016 appear politically and logistically unfeasible.

The Somali quandary is one without a foreseeable solution. Even if rich Western nations take more refugees, they will only make a dent in the global refugee population. In Dadaab, for example, the birth rate in the camp of 1,000 children per month drastically outpaces the annual resettlement rate of 2,000 refugees annually to Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Voluntary repatriation, a policy promulgated by the Kenyan Department of Refugee Affairs and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is not a viable option for Somalis living in Dadaab either. Many of these refugees have already returned destitute to destroyed villages, lacking access to healthcare and schools, facing the continued threat of al-Shabab. Often, they go back to Kenya to attempt to re-register as refugees.

As the possibility of closing Dadaab becomes increasingly slim, the Kenyan Department of Refugees and the UNHCR will have to devise a new method of handling the protracted refugee crisis that pivots away from a purely humanitarian approach.