State pledges to help Kenyans in Uganda return

By Robert Wanyonyi

The Government will support nearly 1,800 Kenyans who fled to Uganda following post-election violence to return home, Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang’ula has said.

The refugees are hosted at Kiriandong Refugee Camp in Masindi District of Western Uganda.

Mr Wetang’ula told The Standard the Government was ready to liaise with Ugandan authorities and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help them.

"They should not feel forgotten. We are ready to assist them return home if they are willing," he said.

The minister did not, however, indicate how soon the Government would help the refugees, who had a fortnight ago appealed for help.

Fleeing attacks

The refugees were relocated to Kiriandong late last year from the Mulanda near Tororo town, a few kilometres from the Kenya-Uganda border, where they had first settled after fleeing attacks in parts of Western.

Mr Peter Karanja, the refugees’ spokesman, said most of them want to return home.

"We are 1,856 in Kiriandong but there are about 500 others at the Mulanda transit centre," said Karanja in a telephone interview.

He said the Uganda government and UNHCR recently carried out a headcount to identify those at the camp illegally.

"The UNHCR team, which carried out verification, was led by Ms Carol Goldlin. We are not sure of what will follow," he said.

Earlier, most of the refugees had declined to return because they felt unsafe. They claimed their hostile neighbours, who had evicted them at the height of post-election mayhem in Mumias, Malaba and Busia, were still there. Western Province alone had more than 55,000 people displaced and property worth Sh200 million destroyed during the violence, according to the Provincial Administration.

Financial help

"If the Government assures us our security and financial help to start afresh, then most of us are willing to return," said Karanja.

He said they felt the Government had forgotten them and that they should be assisted the way internally displaced persons were helped.

"We face a lot of problems here because there is inadequate food and lack of drugs for the sick," he said.