Tuesday, July 23, 2013
“I have no business going back home anytime soon. Kenya is my home for now.” This is the response by Khatra Hassan, a Somali refugee in Eastleigh, arguably the busiest commercial centre in Nairobi, when asked whether she is willing to go back to her home country. This follows the Kenya government's repatriation order, issued through the Department of Refugee Affairs, in December.
Khatra says while she will be "greatly happy" to go back to Somalia, time isn't ripe for such a move. The mother of two is one of the half a million Somali refugees who sought safety in Kenya after their motherland plunged into civil anarchy in 1991 following the ouster of dictator Siad Bare. “Despite the tangible and positive gains made in securing my country from the threats of al Shabaab and other warlords fighting for power, I still feel more things need to be done,” Khatra, who runs a textile business in the 12th Street of Eastleigh, said.
Mohamed Hassan, a refugee in Hagardera, one of the camps that make up the Dadaab Complex in Garissa county, said despite the deteriorating living conditions in the camps, returning them back to the war-ravaged country will only aggravate their already grave humanitarian situation. “The relative peace currently witnessed in Somalia needs to be nurtured and sustained before we consider going back there,” Hassan said.
Hassan has lived in Dadaab since the collapse of the Somali central government in 1992.
He says going back to Somalia at this time will force them to 'start life from scratch'. “I own a shop and my children are in school. I don't want to start my life afresh after we were evicted from our homes by ruthless gangs in Somalia,” he said.
Many flourishing businesses in Nairobi's Eastleigh and other urban centres especially in Mombasa are owned by Somali nationals.
Mohamed Ismail, a cloth vendor in Eastleigh's Garissa Market, runs a successful business. Some of the wares on sell are imported from Asian countries such as Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. He is sceptical about the fruits of the repatriation effort by Kenya. “The government of Kenya must not derail our hard-earned success by returning us home. That will not be a solution to any problem, rather it is a setback for everyone,” he said.
This comes amid the backdrop of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on Somali refugees torture allegations.
HRW recently released a 68-page report on how Somali refugees face rights violations in the hands of Kenyan security forces in the pretext of fighting terror. “Refugees told us how hundreds of Kenyan police unleashed 10 weeks of hell on communities close to the heart of Nairobi (Eastleigh), torturing, abusing, and stealing from some of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people,” said Gerry Simpson,senior refugee researcher and author of the report titled “You are all Terrorists: Kenyan Police Abuse of Refugees in Nairobi”. The report was released in May.
“International law requires Kenya to ensure that officers who tortured refugees – who raped women and beat children and men into unconsciousness while branding them terrorists – are investigated and held to account,” Simpson said.
Ismail says despite the grave revelations by the global rights body, this is just "among many other challenges faced by refugees worldwide" in foreign lands.
Citing a threat to national security following grenade and gun attacks which claimed many lives especially in the predominantly Somali-inhabited Eastleigh and in North Eastern Kenya, the government gave a directive that all refugees and asylum seekers residing in urban centres be returned to Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
The Department of Refugee Affairs, after what it called “unbearable and uncontrollable threat to national security”, asked the humanitarian agencies to stop their humanitarian services in urban centres and instead confine them to camps, a move the acting head of the department, Badu Katelo, said is meant to bring the gory attacks under control. “The government of Kenya has decided to stop reception, registration and close down of all registrations centres in urban areas with immediate effect,” the statement said.
“We are looking for durable solution to the refugee crises in the country including their safe return to their homeland. Kenya at this juncture is working with the Somali government and UN refugee agency to establish modalities of repatriating refugees,” Katelo further said during the World Refugee Day marked on June 20 in Dadaab.
He, however, said the process will be voluntary. “I wish to clarify that repatriation will be voluntary. Many Somali refugees have expressed their willingness to return home while those who are reluctant have promised to do so once security is guaranteed.”
According to the United Nations Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in a brief on Somalia, about 18,000 refugees have already returned home since January 2013.
Eastleigh, usually referred to as 'Small Mogadishu' or 'a city within a city' on account of its robust business activities, generates millions of shillings in taxes and thousands of people eke out their living as employees and casual labourers.
According to the Eastleigh Business Community chairman Hassan Gulled, business in the area has been hampered by the government's directive as many traders closed their businesses while others relocated to neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania. “Many felt that it is their businesses that are being targeted. Business has been low as some customers feared for their lives and opted to stay away,” Gulled said.
Eastleigh is home to thousands of Somali refugees and Kenyan Somalis who have since invested heavily in the hotel, construction and textile sectors.
Somalia, after two-decade infighting between clans battling for political control, is seen by many as gaining ground on peace and stability. The Hassan Sheikh Mohammud-led government enjoys a great deal of international support, a goodwill which has seen many countries including Kenya send its troops to battle it out with the rag-tag militia, al Shabaab.
The militant group, though weakened, still pose a threat to the Sheikh Mohammud administration. The Kenya Defence Forces are now under the the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) which has considerably attenuated the strength of al Shabaab.
After years of civil war pitting tribal warlords and militants groups, the Somali government is working hard to rebuild the country and guarantee peace for its displaced people, though many challenges abound. Although areas like the capital Mogadishu and south-central town of Baidoa are relatively peaceful, they linger under deadly sporadic suicide and land mines attacks.
The Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed announced that a major conference to carve on modalities of repatriating the Somali refugees will be held in Nairobi in August when she met her Somali counterpart Fowzia Mohamed Adan in Nairobi recently.
The International Organisation for Migration, a humanitarian body that oversees the orderly migration of refugees around the globe, said the conditions for return must be adequate, accommodative for refugees. The IOM communication officer, Lilian Matama, cast doubt about how the refugees will be integrated into Somalia after their lives were ruined by the two-decade war. She, however, said much will be discussed in the August Conference on Somali repatriation. “But our stand has been to advocate for humane, orderly and safe process before repatriation,” she said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, the main medical provider in Dagahley refugee camp, one of the four camps in Dadaab, terms the government's move as premature, since the security conditions in Somalia is still not conducive. According to the MSF head of mission, Elena Velilla, humanitarian agencies continue to have problems reaching some of the refugees in the camps due to heightened insecurity which greatly hinder service delivery.
The humanitarian agency said there is no forced return to Somalia so far, but some people returned due to unfavourable conditions at the camps. “Shelter, water and sanitation conditions in the camps are substandard and this has led to some refugees opting to go back home since the camps are no longer a safe haven,” Velilla told the Star.
As one of the leading humanitarian agencies working in Dadaab, MSF has been invited to the August conference mainly as an observer on how the government will conduct the process of repatriation and resettlement of the refugees.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees is also opposed to the repatriation and the confinement of refugees in the camps, terming it as hurried and 'insensitive' to the rights and plight of refugees. “We feel that the decision reached by the government was rushed, we are still negotiating with them to take steps that will ensure security but also protect the rights of refugees,” Emmanuel Nyabera, the UNHCR spokesman said.
In April during a courtesy visit to President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohammud, said his government is ready to receive the refugees, indicating that the country is now 'more secure' after the militants who have wrecked havoc the Eastern Africa country for decades were largely neutralised by foreign forces under Amisom.
“There is need for Somali refugees in Kenya to return to Somalia as soon as the time is right and preparations have been properly made,” President Mohammud said.
Kenya has for many years been lobbying for global support for the speedy return and resettlement of the more than half a million Somali refugees mainly in Dadaab, the crowded and probably the largest refugee camp in the world covering 50 square kilometres.
Kenya is citing the overstretched and depleted resources, reasons the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon agrees with. “I could feel the huge challenge Kenya was facing and I sympathised with the President at that time because of instability in Somalia,” said Moon during the Somalia Conference held in London in May, a conference meant to to seek and galvanise international support for the fragile country's political stability and development.
Today, Somalis are spread across the globe and can be traced to major cities in the world such as in the United Kingdom, Canada, Africa, Scandinavia, in the Middle East and United States.
But for the hundreds of thousands refugees in Kenya, going back to Somalia isn't on the table... not just yet.
Source: The Star