Kenya
appears to be backing away from a previous announcement to close a refugee
camp, which hosts more than 330,000 Somali refugees.
The
development comes just weeks after Deputy President William Ruto stated that Dadaab refugee camp would be closed within three months.
Ruto made
the comments shortly after 148 people, mostly students, were murdered in a
university in the northern town of Garissa, in an attack claimed by al-Shabab.
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| Dadaab refugee camp hosts 330,000 Somali refugees inside Kenya |
Kenya Refugee
Affairs Commission Chairperson Ali Bunow Korane said “while we are committed to
the return of the refugees, you will not see us holding them by the head and
tail and throwing them across the border”.
Korane was
addressing a forum where officials from the UN, aid agencies and civil society
discussed the implications of closing the Dadaab refugee camp.