Kenya to appeal verdict blocking Dadaab closure

NAIROBI. - The High Court in Nairobi has quashed the Kenya government’s plan to close down the Dadaab Refugee Camp.

Yesterday, Justice John Mativo ruled that Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery and Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho acted beyond their powers in issuing the directive to close down the camp.

The court also declared the repatriation of refugees unconstitutional and described it as discriminative.

The judge directed the government to adopt mechanisms that would ensure the department of refugees is functioning properly.

Last May, Mr Nkaissery announced the government was shutting down the camp by November 2016, citing security, environmental and economic concerns, and accused the international donors of doing little to support refugees.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and rights groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had publicly condemned the move.

Mr Nkaissery insisted the “decision to close Dadaab was based on serious security considerations.”

The Jubilee government put Sh1 billion into the programme meant to hasten the closure, and appointed a special task force to look into ways of doing so.

In November, the government extended the deadline for closing the Dadaab refugee complex in what it said was the “delicate security situation in Somalia.”

But hours after the verdict, the government said it would appeal, with government spokesman Eric Kiraithe saying while the Jubilee administration was law abiding, it would not change the decision.

Garissa University attack in 2014, Mr Kiraithe said, was planned and executed by Al-Shabaab from the camp that hosted up to 600,000 refugees years ago.

He added that Somalia now has a government under President-elect and therefore the refugees will have a stable country to go back to.

Kenya, he said, has freely been taking in refugees with more than 200,000 in the country even against the interna- tional standards, but time had come for them to return home

The fight over refugees’ return intensified as the World Bank announced a Sh10 billion fund meant to support communities that host refugees in Kenya, in what could be a response to growing complaints that refugees are favoured by donors.

World Bank Country Director Diariétou Gaye yesterday said the Bank would pump a pool of $100 million to three counties in Kenya that have traditionally hosted refugees.

The idea, she said, would help improve the relationship between local communities and refugees living in Turkana, Wajir and Garissa counties.

The board of the bank will discuss and endorse the fund this April before initial projects targeting Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps start in July.

The bank says the five-year project will help improve the life, and environment around Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps, even as the government battles to close the latter down.

The Bank says it is coming on board to supplement the projects done through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), following persistent complaints that local communities do not share in the relief programmes channelled to refugees.

“We did a previous study on the situation of refugees in the whole of Africa and what we found out was that the refugee host communities are worse off than refugees themselves and there have been a lot of deficits in development,” said Varalakshmi Vemuru, a Senior Social Development Specialist at the World Bank who is involved in the project.

“The whole issue is how we can help our counties to use existing facilities to serve both communities.

‘‘That is why we are looking at areabased planning. We are telling our partners that don’t look at today and tomorrow, look at the long term,” she added in an interview.

Turkana West, Wajir South, Lagdera and Fafi sub counties will be initial beneficiaries, as the bank seeks to boost sanitation, education and health facilities.