On the outskirts of this commercial port town in Somalia’s southernmost, border state of Jubaland, makeshift displacement camps are swelling with vulnerable families.
They are part of a wave of Somali refugees returning from neighboring Kenya under a U.N.-facilitated voluntary repatriation program, which many aid agencies say does not give refugees a genuine choice.
Many returnees are dismayed by what they find upon return to Somalia. Outside Kismayo, some 16,000 newly arrived refugees are currently camped in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in meager shelters that they built themselves, with little access to medical care and no schools.
Women and children are stranded in the makeshift camps outside Kismayo, with little information of the type of help they can expect in rebuilding their lives. (Ashley Hamer)
Women and children are stranded in the makeshift camps outside Kismayo, with little information of the type of help they can expect in rebuilding their lives. (Ashley Hamer)
In 2013, the Kenyan government, United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Somali federal government reached a collaborative agreement on “voluntary repatriation.” UNHCR is tasked with transporting the refugees back to Somalia; most by truck, some by air.
Between December 2014 and the end of September 2016, 30,731 Somali refugees from Dadaab went through the repatriation process. Most of them – 24,630 refugees – returned to Somalia in 2016, amid mounting pressure from the Kenyan government.
Kenya announced in May it would permanently close Dadaab refugee camp – home to more than 320,000 Somalis spanning several generations – and send all Somali refugees home by the end of 2016. Health care services in the camp had already been reduced since 2014, and food rations cut by a third.