Seven families from the Ifo Refugee Camp left for Mogadishu, Somalia, yesterday morning.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery saw off the 41 Somalis at the Dadaab Airstrip.
He was with Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, Northeastern regional coordinator Mohamud Saleh and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees officials.
Refugee Yussuf Osman, who comes from Banader in Mogadishu, has been in the camps for 25 years.
He said he is delighted to go back home after two-and-half decades.
Osman, 35, arrived in the camp when he was 10 and studied there to become a teacher.
He said it is time for them to join their folks and re-build war-torn Somalia.
“We are happy that there is relative peace in Somalia. And as the saying goes, east or west, home is best. I want to join the rest of Somali citizens in re-building our motherland,” Osman said.
He said lack of jobs for refugees and the dwindling support by UN agencies running the refugee camps prompted him to go back home. “We sued to receive food rations every month and life was bearable. But as we speak this ratio has reduced to once a month, which can barely sustain a family,” Osman said.
He thanked UNHCR and the Kenya government for the support they have given refugees at their hour of need.
“In as much as we have been treated well, living in a country as a refugee without other opportunities to empower yourself economically is a bit tricky,” Osman said.