Do not force refugees to return to Somalia

By Mohamed Guleid

The recent declaration by the Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku that the refugees from Somalia shall be forcefully repatriated was unfortunate and a total disregard of international human rights standards.

From my understanding, Kenya is one of the 148 states that are a signatory of the Geneva Convention of 1951, and its subsequent Protocol of 1967, that gives rights to people in need refuge. The sudden turn of events for these refugees was influenced by the recent unfortunate terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping mall.

Rumour has it that some of the people involved in that attack had lived in one of the refugee camps. Despite that incident the many hundreds of thousands of the refugee communities are innocent in as far as any form of organised crime is concerned.

The Geneva Convention on refugee rights advocates for a case by case decision when dealing with such allegations when they are made against refugees.

Any collective decision disregards individual risks involved in repatriating people collectively. Not all refugees come from the same region in Somalia.

There is a common thinking within the Kenyan establishment that the areas secured by the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) are free of security risks for the refugees, so camps can be established in, for example, the Jubaland state in Somalia, which recently declared itself an autonomous region.

Of course those who feel safe and are bounded by ethnicity to this region are able to return.

However, the camps in Dadaab and Kakuma in Turkana County host people from all over Somalia, including territories still under Al -Shabaab’s control. The Geneva Convention is particular about taking people back to areas they don’t belong.

Most refugees in Kenya, especially those from Somalia, started arriving around 1991 when the regime of former President Mohamed Siad Barre collapsed.

Assimilation

Since then, the second generation refugees make up more than a half of the total refugees since most of them are born and brought up here.

Forceful repatriation is a breach of our own laws since under the current Constitution any child born in Kenya automatically acquires the Kenyan citizenship. So what happens to those children who were born here, some of whom have even received their university degrees from Kenyan institutions and feel more at home here than in a country that many of them have never seen in their entire life?

The best option would be to comply with our immigration laws and grant those who have lived here for more than seven years the option of applying for Kenyan citizenship so as to be assimilated here.

Most developed countries give refugees this option and have since benefitted from the presence of refugees. In the European countries refugees have put some life in towns and villages where due to aging the demographic numbers have dropped.

Even in Kenya many of these refugees have proved to be very enterprising and have increased the volumes of trade in some areas. For example the towns in Northeastern Kenya are booming with trade because refugees have brought competition in free market trade. The impact of the economic activities by refugees in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area is well known.

Therefore the solution to the refugee issue is not forceful repatriation but in dialogue with the concerned people so that if any refugee wants to go back, he or she is given the option to do so voluntarily.

Those who have stayed in Kenya more than required number of years to acquire Kenya residence should be given the opportunity to do so. This does not imply an underestimation of the contribution refugees can make to their motherland.

The educated ones who feel obliged to take part in nation building and increasing capacity in their country should, as a matter of course, be facilitated to return to the areas where they feel safe and accepted.