Will Kenya really close Dadaab camp?

If the Kenyan government is bluffing over its announcement that it will close Dadaab refugee camp by November and repatriate 350,000 Somalis back across the border, then it’s a more elaborate ruse than usual.

Consider this: it has gone to the trouble of getting the African Union’s Peace and Security Council to declare that Dadaab constitutes “a serious threat to the security of Kenya”; last month it quietly revoked the prima facie refugee status for Somalis; then it took the big step of disbanding the Department of Refugee Affairs; and now it hasset up a National Task Force on the Repatriation of Refugees to come up with the method, timeline and budget for closure by the end of this month.

But scepticism is well founded. This is not the first occasion Kenya has threatened to close Dadaab. It has long branded the sprawling system of camps a haven for the Somali jihadist group al-Shabaab. The militants have launched two major attacks on Kenya – Westgate in 2013 and Garissa University in 2015 – killing at least 215 people, and striking major blows against the government’s prestige. But there is no public evidence that links the attackers to Dadaab.

Nevertheless, the government insists that its actions are based on security concerns – a framing that works for both a domestic and international audience. Imaana Koome of the Refugee Consortium of Kenya said the officials he would regularly talk to are now “tight lipped” and citing “national security”. ”Where is this coming from? Your guess is as good as mine.”

What’s on the table?

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi is due in Nairobi at the end of the month and the hope is that a way out of the crisis can be found – the promise of international support has always worked in the past. But there is also a feeling that the ground has shifted. “It does seem potentially more serious this time,” Human Rights Watch researcher Laetitia Bader told IRIN.

Kenya seems out to make a point. The European Union has struck financial deals with key transit countries to control migrant flows ($3.3 billion to Turkey), but is getting away with it “on the cheap” in Kenya, according to Karanja Kibicho, principal secretary at the Kenyan interior ministry.

Europe’s handling of its refugee crisis, and the populist appeal of a certain US businessman-turned-politician who wants to build a wall along the Mexican border, puncture any notion of moral authority.

And how can Western governments take the high ground if Dadaab – the world’s largest refugee complex – is perennially on life support? There was a $25 million funding shortfall in 2012, and the World Food Programme has cut food rations twice since 2013. The Kenyan government’s refusal to consider an assimilation policy and drop its encampment approach means there has been no long-term strategy to improve livelihoods.

The weakness of border controls and episodic refugee registration also means a large and fluid population indistinguishable from the local community in Kenya’s northeast. This changing demography has a political dynamic, with growing friction between indigenous Kenyan Somalis and the new arrivals in the region.

“Kenya feels incredibly frustrated by its refugee burden,” noted Rashid Abdi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.

No appetite for return

So Kenya’s sole focus is on the refugees returning home. It was initially mollified by a voluntary repatriation agreement, signed along with Somalia and the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. But progress has been slow. Only 14,000 refugees have returned since the start of the programme in December 2014 – and half of that total went home between January and April this year.

Another disappointment was the outcome of last year’s donor conference in Brussels, staged to raise money for voluntary repatriation and the related goal of rebuilding Somalia. The plan was costed at $500 million, but donors pledged (as opposed to forked over) only $105 million.

The irony of disbanding the Department of Refugee Affairs is that it has put the repatriation programme on pause. A flight to Mogadishu has already been cancelled as there was no one to issue the refugees’ “movement passes”. Now the functions of DRA officers have been handed over to local country officials, although it is unclear whether this is legal.

But even if it was working at full capacity, the repatriation programme cannot deliver on the scale Kenya wants. “Refugees require three things in place before they return,” said Heather Amstutz, regional director of the Danish Refugee Council.

The writer filed this article for IRIN from Nairobi