REFUGEES RETURNING TO SOUTHERN SOMALIA BLOCKED BY REGIONAL AUTHORITY DEMANDING BETTER DEAL FROM UNHCR
The Jubbaland State of Somalia announced on Monday that it would not allow Somali refugees from the Dadaab camps in Kenya to return until adequate support was provided to enable them to cope with their new lives back in Somalia.
The regional authority has prevented 1,200 Somali refugees, who reached the Kenyan-Somali border town of Dhobley yesterday, from continuing their journey into Jubbaland.
The refugees signed up for the voluntary repatriation programme facilitated by UNHCR and are now waiting at two transit centres managed by IOM and UNHCR in Dhobley.
In an interview with Radio Ergo, Jubbaland’s Interior Minister Mohamed Warsame Darwiish said UNHCR and his administration had previously agreed that Jubbaland would allocate land to accommodate the returnees and provide security. The UNHCR for its part was to assist the refugees in accessing basic services such as education and healthcare.
The minister said the administration had fulfilled its promise but the agency had not kept its word to assist the families adequately for their return home. He said returning refugees received facilitation of their travel to Somalia and were then “abandoned” on arrival in Kismayo and Luq.
“As Jubbaland, we have carried out an assessment and found that the future of the returnees looks bleak. If we decide that each family hosts another family and we continue bringing more people to Kismayo and other districts, then things will get worse and life will become a mess for all families,” the minister said.
“These Somali families flooding back into the country need to have a life and a future where their children can learn,” the minister said, warning that young people returning from the camps to Somalia without education or job prospects may decide to join Al-Shabaab or to migrate to Europe.
UNCHR transports returning refugees from Dadaab to Dhobley, where they stay overnight in a transit centre before boarding buses onward to their destinations.
The minister said there were already 16,617 returnees who were “vulnerable and struggling with the life” in Kismayo and Luq. Further discussions were urgently needed to enable them to access the assistance they needed to have the dignified living conditions that they deserved.
UNHCR says on its website that “return and initial reintegration packages will be provided to reduce the risk of further displacement. Reintegration activities (e.g. livelihoods, rehabilitation of basic infrastructure) will follow a community-based approach to ensure that assistance benefit [sic] IDPs, refugee returnees as well as host populations.”
