Unlawful refugees' transfer plan in Kenya to violate human rights

The Kenyan authorities should halt their plan to forcibly move 55,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from cities to overcrowded and under serviced refugee camps, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. Citing a number of grenade attacks in 2012, the authorities contend the move will improve Kenyan national security and lead to the return of Somali refugees to Somalia. 

The plan would violate refugees’ free movement rights and would almost certainly involve the unlawful forced eviction of tens of thousands of refugees from their lodgings in the cities, Human Rights Watch said. The longstanding humanitarian crisis in Kenya’s refugee camps also means the relocation would affect refugees’ ability to make a living and unlawfully reduce their access to adequate food, clothing, housing, health care and education. 

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of 2012, 46,540 registered urban refugees were living in Kenya, including 33,246 Somalis. In addition, 6,832 registered urban asylum seekers from a variety of nationalities, including 447 Somalis, were living in Kenya. 

On December 13, Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA) said that all asylum seekers and refugees from Somalia in Kenya’s urban areas should move to the Dadaab refugee camps near the Somali border and that all urban asylum seekers and refugees from other countries should move to the Kakuma refugee camp, near the Sudan border. It said that registration of asylum seekers and refugees in urban areas had been stopped, that all registration centers had been closed and that UNHCR and other agencies serving asylum seekers and refugees should stop providing all direct services to refugees.

Human Rights Watch said that arbitrarily forcing tens of thousands of people out of their homes in the cities would amount to forced evictions, unlawful under international law. 

At the December 13 news conference, Commissioner Katelo said that the refugees’ relocation to the camps would “closely be followed by repatriation of Somali refugees back to Somalia.” On December 21, President Mwai Kibaki said that, “There is no dignity in living in refugee camps” and that Somalia and Kenya would “work together to enable the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who are living in refugee camps to return to their homes.” 

Human Rights Watch said the situation in south-central Somalia remains insecure and that any steps by Kenyan authorities to force or otherwise encourage Somalis to return to their country would breach Kenyan and international law, which forbids the forcible return of refugees to persecution, torture, or situations of generalized violence. 

The ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Dadaab camps – where at least 450,000 refugees are crammed into space meant for 170,000 -- and the lack of properly developed new camps there or near the Kakuma camps means any transfer of refugees from the cities to the camps would also breach Kenya’s international legal obligations. They require Kenya not to adopt “retrogressive measures” that would negatively affect refugees’ rights to adequate standard of living -- including food, clothing and housing -- and to health and education. 

Human Rights Watch called on foreign donors to Kenya and on UNHCR to oppose the relocation plan, based on its inevitable violation of refugees’ rights to free movement, basic social and economic rights, and the right not to be forcibly evicted. 

Sources:

• HREA refugee newsletter, 22/01/13

• Human Rights Watch Press release, Unlawful Transfer Plan to Begin January 21, Could Provoke Conflict, 21/01/2013