Somali refugee: I will die in Kenya or die trying to be Kenyan

I might be a refugee, yes, but do I deserve to be treated as if I was the reason for my status? I think it’s NO. That is the question one Abdu Mohammed asked as he narrated his story upon hearing the news of refugees being repatriated to Somalia.

At the age of 14, I earned the name refugee in 1992 as I worked across the Kenyan boarder dobley from Somalia, where once a peaceful country was now being turned into a deadly war zone. I remember my own family up there and how they met their death, brutally attacked by militia in the name of clannism, so the only option for me was to flee.