High Court of Kenya Issues Temporary Stay on Order to Close Refugee Camps

Kanyan authorities issued a 14-day ultimatum to UNHCR to close two major refugee camps; others fought back.

On 24 March, UNHCR was ordered by Kenyan authorities to shut down two major refugee camps, Dadaab and Kakuma. Kenya’s Ministry of Interior gave UNHCR a “14-day ultimatum to have a roadmap on definite closure” of these camps which house some 512, 494 refugees and asylum seekers who fled violence and natural disaster in surrounding countries. A temporary stay of the government’s ultimatum was ordered on 8 April, but their one month extension of response time does not provide much time for conditions to improve.

The two camps house people of over 15 nationalities, including Somalis, South Sudanese, Ethiopians, Tanzanians, and Ugandans. Somalian refugees account for just over 50% of the total refugee populations in Dadaab, which is situated close to the border of Somalia, and Kakuma. Journalist Ty McCormick describes the camps as “hopeless traps” with restrictions on movement, food rationing, and limited education for people who are “permanent exiles facing a lifetime in waiting.”

UNHCR acknowledged the “tremendous generosity” demonstrated by the people and government of Kenya since the establishment of its refugee camps in 1991 in a statement on 9 April; the statement also highlighted “the need to resolve situations of longstanding displacement.” A 26 year old South Sudanese refugee living in Kakuma reported that “Before the camp was open very many people lost lives [and] fled their home countries … [In the camps] many have found a place to call home and I don’t think many of them are willing to go back.”

Camp locations and surrounding countries.

Devon Cone, Senior Advocate for Women and Girls at Refugees International, calls the ultimatum “reckless and cruel,” especially considering its effects of uprooting a half million refugees only to send them back to unsafe countries. 

Many Somalis believe the Kenyan government is using the closure of the camps as political leverage in diplomatic disputes; these relations have been denied. Many Kenyan officials call the camps sources of insecurity from which the recruiting for and launching of terrorist attacks inside Kenya stems. A former Somali intelligence chief Abdullahi Mohamed Ali said some security concerns could be legitimate, but labels refugees as no security threat on a larger scale. 

After Kenya’s Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i announced the ultimatum with “no room for further negotiations,” former presidential aspirant Peter Gichira challenged the decision in court, arguing that the directive “violates the Constitution of Kenya, International Laws, and treaties regarding the protection of refugee rights and is therefore null and void.” At the end of the 14-day ultimatum, Justice Antony Mrima issued the temporary one month stay.

UNHCR presented the government of Kenya with solutions which they call “sustainable and rights-based” on 9 April. The proposal includes four parts: enhanced voluntary repatriation with parameters accounting for COVID-19, provisions for alternative-stay arrangements which provide opportunities for greater self-reliance and contribution to the local economy for refugees from the East African Community, accelerated issuing of national ID cards to over 10,000 Kenyans who are registered in the refugee database, and resettlement to third countries for some refugees who face protection risks and are not able to return home. 

The director of Human Rights Watch’s refugee and migrant rights division, Bill Frelick, said “Kenya needs to maintain asylum and consider allowing refugees at long last to integrate” until conditions in Somalia stabilize. Additionally, Frelick advises that instead of closing, the camps ought to open and allow greater freedom to move for its inhabitants; he also says that “donor governments need to provide financial support and resettlement opportunities” that maintain hope for those displaced.