The Silver Lining in Kenya's Decision to close Dadab Camp

The Kenyan decision to shut down the world’s largest refugee camp of Dadaab, despite all the outcries from international humanitarian organizations, is a huge favor for the residents of the camp.

A few days ago, the Somali president Hasan Sheikh Mohamoud in an interview with BBC Somali Service warned against the forceful repatriation of refugees, while emphasizing Somalia’s desire for the refugees to return.

And he is right. The Somali refugees need the repatriation even more than Kenya needs it for its security concerns.

Dire Situations

Dadaab which was opened twenty-five years ago to host 90 thousand Somalis fleeing the war, is now home to more than three hundred thousand refugees. There are children born in the camp for parents who were themselves born in the camp. It is is a trans-generational displacement.

Although the camp has 42 schools, twenty-two hospitals, and health centers, numerous restaurants and countless shops, people there lead severely handicapped lives. They overwhelmingly rely on food rations, and their movement is restricted. They can not engage in meaningful businesses due to limitations on their mobility, and neither they can look for jobs outside the camp.

Everything in the camp is meant to be temporary, even buildings are. Building permanent houses are prohibited. Yet, it has been twenty-five years.

Life in refugee camps never grants people a chance to reach their potential, not even after quarter a century. And Dadaab camp is no different. There is a thick and visible, not made of glass but rather from concrete for what people there can do with their lives.

Opportunity Cost

Besides the limits to what life can be in the camps, there is a real opportunity cost for the refugees if they stay in Kenya any longer.  Somalia is becoming stable with the defeat of Alshabab, and state-building is accelerating both at federal and regional levels. And the economy despite all difficulties seems to be recovering.

It is almost like a new start for the country after twenty-five years, and everyone who is there has the same head start, while who is absent is risking to be left behind.

This dynamic can be understood by looking back to the early days of Somaliland and the voluntary repatriation of refugees after the civil war. There were two waves of refugees homecoming; one right after the declaration of independence; and the other one in the early 2000s.

Those early comers faced tough situations where security was so volatile, the education system totally broken, and healthcare almost non-existent. In the face of that stark realities, some people preferred the comfort of the refugee camps.

Today one glance at the neighborhoods where the late repatriates were settled is enough to demonstrate what their late arrival has cost them. Kosar Village in Burao and State House neighborhood in Hargeisa are probably the most impoverished areas in the two cities.

But after twenty-five years, aren’t they already late? Probably not, at least not as late as those humble efforts to help them stand on their feet couldn’t make up for it.

Preparations to be Made

Unless the closing of the camp, which is by itself a bless, is approached properly, the whole thing would be for nothing. Refugees may come back to the same camps they are expelled from, or embark on dangerous migrations.

These people were in this “life on hold” situation for a long time, and their resettlement is not an easy undertaking. The country they are supposed to resettle in, a substantial number of them have never seen it before.

The Somali president, in The BBC interview,  rightfully called for a systematic, meaningful, and dignified return of refugees when the country is ready for them.

And what that dignified and meaningful return entails is resettlement in a welcoming environment where these estranged citizens can rebuild their lives. The most welcoming places for the returnees are perhaps their areas of origin, which for two-thirds of them is Jubbaland State ( Gedo, lower and upper Jubba regions,) according to UNHCR data.

Having covered the land to settle in, what remains to consider is the basic infrastructure of schools and health facilities.

I may be making the resettlement task sound like an easy one, but it is not. The federal government should develop proper plans to address these basic needs, and donors and humanitarian aid agencies ought to be happy about footing the bill. It will take the daunting task of caring for all those people of their shoulders once and for all.

Twenty-five years is a long time to be displaced from one’s country. It is time for Dadab residents to be brought home permanently. With the Kenyan desire, the improvements in security and state functioning in the country, there is a real chance to do just that, and do it right.

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