Kenya says it is not happy with the pace of repatriation of refugees to Somalia.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said since the Tripartite Agreement was signed on November 13, 2013 between Kenya, Federal Government of Somalia and the UNHCR only 4,214 Somali refugees of the nearly 500,000 have been repatriated.
“We are not pleased with the rate of the implementation of this agreement. While a Tripartite Commission was launched in April 2015, not much has been achieved,” he said.
Nkaissery said Kenyans see the repatriation of the Somali refugees as crucial to enabling them engage in rebuilding of Somalia and especially ahead of their elections in August 2016.
He spoke Monday in Geneva, Switzerland during the executive committee of the high commissioner’s programme. The minister said the missing link to the ambition has been the near reluctance of the international community to support the Somalia repatriation effort.
He urged the international community to support the Global Initiative on Somali Refugees, whose pledging conference will be held in Brussels on October 21, 2015.
He said it is imperative that humanitarian actors dealing with the Somalia situation relocate into Somalia. Besides ensuring that they can create the necessary infrastructure to support return, it would also signal international community’s confidence in the rehabilitation of Somalia, he argued.