Amnesty raps Kenya for eviction of Somali refugees

Amnesty International has censured Kenya for compelling Somali refugees to go back to their conflict-ridden country and face death just two weeks before a deadline to close the world's largest refugee camp.

The human rights group said in a report on Tuesday that the returned refugees risk getting killed or forcibly recruited into the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group.

Kenya said in May that it sought to shut down the Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee site, which hosts more than 280,000, by year-end.

Nairobi says some of the asylum seekers in Dadaab, which is near the Kenya-Somalia border, are being used by Somalia-based al-Shabab militants to launch terrorist attacks inside Kenya.

“The refugees are caught between a rock and a hard place,” Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said.

"Kenyan government officials are telling them they must leave by the end of the month (November) or they will be forced to leave without any assistance," she said.

“These actions contravene the Kenyan government’s assurances to the international community that it would ensure all refugee repatriations are voluntary and carried out in safety and dignity.” 

The rights group said its researchers visited the camp in August, where they interviewed 56 refugees individually and held group discussions with 35 others.

The report cited the accounts of two brothers, aged 15 and 18, who went to Somalia in January 2016 and then returned to the camp after just four months.

The two said their father was killed in front of them and they were forced to join the Takfiri group in Somalia, adding they eventually managed to flee the group and return to the camp.

SS