500,000 Somali Refugees To Be Sent Home From Kenya

More than 500,000 Somali refugees living in Kenya are to be returned to their home country after the UN refugee agency signed a tripartite agreement with the two governments.

Under the agreement, the Somalis will be repatriated voluntarily over the next three years.

The Somalis have sought refuge in Kenya from war and poverty.

Two of the camps they live in, Dadaab and Kakuma, are now so large they are more like towns, correspondents say.

There is also a suburb of Nairobi - Eastleigh - that is known as "mini Somalia" because so many Somalis live there.

'Committed'

The refugees fled Somalia after the collapse of the central government in 1991.

It sounds eminently reasonable that people who have been living as exiles in a vast, dusty, tented city in a foreign country should be reintegrated to their homeland, as long as it safe to do so.

But there's one problem: Somalia is still not safe. Most of the refugees know that and probably would not want to return. They also think that the Somali government could not provide them with the food, healthcare and education they currently receive in the refugee camps.

Although the Kenyan government and the UNHCR have signed up to the agreement they are not acting entirely altruistically. Since the attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi in September, the Kenyan government fears that the Somali community poses an even greater security threat and is shielding potential perpetrators of similar atrocities. The UN in turn has had to scale down rations in the Dadaab refugee camp because of a lack of resources.

Many of them were born in camps and have never set foot inside their home country.

The two governments and the UN hope to introduce a reintegration programme to help the refugees start new lives in Somalia and take part in the reconstruction of the country.

Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister Fowsia Yusuf Adam said her country was preparing for the safe return of its refugees.

"Terrorism is still a major threat to our region. The federal republic of Somalia is committed to creating conditions that will allow for the safe and dignified voluntary repatriation of the Somali refugees in Kenya and other neighbouring countries."

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) representative to Kenya, Raouf Mazou, said the agreement was a "call to the rest of the international community to commit more vigorously for viable and sustainable solutions for the victims of a conflict that has lasted for way too long".

The BBC World Service's Africa editor, Richard Hamilton, says the main problem with the agreement is that most of the refugees know that Somalia is still not safe and probably would not want to return.

Our correspondent says that, while Kenya has been praised for offering help to a neighbour in need, the country is becoming disgruntled with having to bear the burden of the refugee population.

Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto says refugees have become a shield for those who pose a security threat to Kenya.

Kenya has been concerned about further threats of terrorism following the attack by suspected Somali militants on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in September.

The Somali Islamist al-Shabab group - which is linked to al-Qaeda - said it was behind the attack.

It said it was taking revenge after Kenya sent troops into Somalia to help the UN-backed government seize territory from militants.