The Kenyan government may soon resume registration of Somali refugees fleeing drought and conflict in the Horn of Africa nation to help ease their suffering, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.“There are indications from Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs that the registration process may resume soon following a halt in October due to security and other concerns,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its Somali Displacement Update released in Nairobi. Kenya suspended registration of refugees in October last year as part of a security effort to restrict members of Al-Shabaab from taking residence in the camp. The halting of the exercise came after a spate of deadly attacks using explosive devices in Dadaab camps that shelter more than 500,000 refugees, the majority of them from Somalia. Several Kenyan police officers and civilians have been killed in blasts while aid workers were abducted near the refugee settlements. Last month, the Refugees International (RI) called on Kenya to resume the registration, noting that the Somali refugees who had arrived in the northern Kenyan refugee camp after registration were stranded and are facing difficulties.“Without registration, refugee families can’t get full access to the assistance they need. The aid workers we spoke to told us that many of the refugees who arrived after registration stopped are in very bad shape,” RI Senior Advocate, Melanie Teff, said after visiting Dadaab refugee camp. On Tuesday, the UNHCR said registration of births and deaths and ration card management are on-going, adding that under an “operations continuity plan,” activities and service delivery are increasing in the camps. UNHCR also said there have been reports of spontaneous refugee returns to Somalia from the Dadaab camps mainly to take part in harvest and return after the harvest season. “But other reports indicate that some refugees were leaving the camps permanently and had sold their food rations. Various meetings have been planned with the refugee community to verify reasons for returns,” UNHCR said. UNHCR said go-and-see visits to the newly built Ifo 2 in northern Kenya are being organised in a bid to persuade those on the outskirts to move to Ifo 2 “So far 2,000 refugees have been moved and another 3,500 are set to join them in the coming weeks. Upon completion of the relocation, Ifo 2 will have reached its capacity of 80, 000,” the UN agency said. However, the agency said refugees on the outskirts of Dagahaley camp remain reluctant to move to the more secure Ifo 2 camp despite an awareness campaign.According to UN, some 1.3 million people are internally displaced within Somalia, while more than 968,000 Somalis live as refugees in neighbouring countries, primarily in Kenya (520,000), Yemen (203,000) and Ethiopia (186,000). Somalia remains “one of the worst and most alarming” humanitarian crises that UNHCR faces, generating the largest number of refugees and displaced in the world after Afghanistan and Iraq, Ms. Fleming noted.According to UNHCR, conflict, violence against civilians, drought and famine, have forced an estimated 300,000 people to flee Somalia in 2011. More than half of the number has found shelter at the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, while others sought refuge in Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti.
