Closing the doors of Dadaab and Kakuma
Understanding Kenya’s decision to shut down its refugee camps.
Kenya has maintained a long history of supporting refugees through protracted conflicts, specifically as host to the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps. However, after two decades of hosting over 400,000 refugees and faced with the possibility of more arrivals, the Government of Kenya has officially sought to close its doors once and for all.
The lead up to Kenya’s Decision
Kenya’s decision to close down Dadaab and Kakuma does not come as a shock to many actors across the refugee regime. In fact, the Government of Kenya first attempted to shut down Dadaab in 2017, citing major security concerns following the Westgate Mall terror attacks. However, official actions towards the closure of the camp were blocked by the Kenyan High Court for reasons of international legality and obligation.
Specifically, Kenya is a Contracting State to the UN Refugee Convention, which prohibits obliged countries from actions toward refoulement—or the forced return of refugees to their home countries at the potential risk of further endangerment and persecution upon return. Given that the inhabitants of Dadaab are predominantly Somali, there were cited concerns for the welfare of refugees upon return to Somalia, a country that remains unstable to this day.
Without a clear outline for hosting obligations and no foreseeable end to protracted conflicts in the region, Kenya has remained increasingly burdened as host to Dadaab and Kakuma indefinitely.
Seeking alternative action to the closure of Dadaab, the Government of Kenya and the UNHCR offered a small financial incentive (≈$400) to Somali refugees in exchange for their “voluntary” return home. According to Human Rights Watch, critics argue this financial incentive program violated non-refoulement given the desperate situation of many refugees torn between immediate financial relief, misinformation, intimidation by Kenyan authorities to vacate, and the indefinite timeframe by which to continue waiting in the camp. Nevertheless, this preliminary attempt to curb refugee numbers barely made a dent in the larger population of refugees still choosing to remain under the security and support of the camps.
These first attempts to quickly repatriate refugees revealed Kenya’s early and increasing intentions to suspend its refugee hosting operations sooner than what the world was prepared for.
While 146 countries have signed on to the UN Refugee Convention, in practice, it does not hold every contracting state equally accountable in long-term refugee hosting expectations.
Responsibility-sharing
Kenya’s inability to safely repatriate refugees to their home countries in combination with its restrictive policies on refugee movement in-country have made refugee camps “prime models of warehousing.” The USCRI reports that the problem of refugee warehousing is “exacerbated by an international rights framework that has been led by rich countries eager to continue placing the onus of caring for refugees on the world’s poorest countries.”
While 146 countries have signed on to the UN Refugee Convention, in practice, it does not hold every contracting state equally accountable in long-term refugee hosting expectations. While the Convention clearly lays the groundwork for what Kenya is prohibited from doing as a refugee-hosting country, it does not provide a clear timeline for refugees or hosting countries as to when durable solutions must be implemented. Without a clear outline for hosting obligations and no foreseeable end to protracted conflicts in the region, Kenya has remained increasingly burdened as host to Dadaab and Kakuma indefinitely.
While the Convention clearly lays the groundwork for what Kenya is prohibited from doing as a refugee-hosting country, it does not provide a clear timeline for refugees or hosting countries as to when durable solutions must be implemented.
Kenya is further bound to its legal obligations to refugees through its geography, proximal to regions of protracted conflicts. Consequently, Kenya does not exercise the same discretion and agency as the USA or Canada whose borders remain less accessible to those fleeing major conflicts. Indeed, we see how geography can shape the interpretation of the Convention and its inability to address the issue of responsibility-sharing among host states in the face of long-term displacement camps. Now, Kenya is acting fast to close its camps in the name of national security interests and most notably, as a reaction to the imbalance in hosting obligations dictated by power differentials that exist across the refugee regime.
The Road Ahead
Kenya has given the refugee regime and other stakeholders a hard deadline for the camp closures, set for June 30th, 2022. Consequently, the UNHCR and Kenyan Government agree that refugee camps are “not long-term solutions to forced displacement” and have formed a joint task force to both develop and facilitate a roadmap for alternative solutions for the refugees under their jurisdiction.
This roadmap outlines the humane management of refugees in Kakuma and Dadaab through 3 key strategies that fall in line with responsibility-sharing principles: 1) Voluntary repatriation; 2) Third country resettlement; and 3) Kenyan residency and citizenship pathways for refugees from East African countries.
With such a narrow timeframe by which to implement durable solutions for the thousands of refugees impacted by next year’s anticipated closures, the refugee protection regime must act diligently in the interest of Kenya’s national sovereignty and most crucially, for the refugees who are suspended in limbo.
