In this July 9, 2011 file photo, Somali refugees walk through an area housing new arrivals, on the outskirts of Hagadera Camp outside Dadaab, Kenya. (Photo by AP)
In this July 9, 2011 file photo, Somali refugees walk through an area housing new arrivals, on the outskirts of Hagadera Camp outside Dadaab, Kenya. (Photo by AP)
Amnesty International has censured Kenya for compelling Somali refugees to go back to their conflict-ridden country and face death just two weeks before a deadline to close the world’s largest refugee camp.
The human rights group said in a report on Tuesday that the returned refugees risk getting killed or forcibly recruited into the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group.
Kenya said in May that it sought to shut down the Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee site, which hosts more than 280,000, by year-end.
Nairobi says some of the asylum seekers in Dadaab, which is near the Kenya-Somalia border, are being used by Somalia-based al-Shabab militants to launch terrorist attacks inside Kenya.
“The refugees are caught between a rock and a hard place,” Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said.
“Kenyan government officials are telling them they must leave by the end of the month (November) or they will be forced to leave without any assistance,” she said.