Kenyan High Court blocks closure of Dadaab refugee camp

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya

The High Court in Kenya on Thursday ruled to keep the Dadaab Refugee camp in northern Kenya open.

Kenya had vowed to close the world’s largest refugee camp, the Dadaab complex near the Somali border, by June 2017 citing security concerns.

Ruling the government order discriminatory, High Court Justice John Mativo blocked the move to “forcefully repatriate Somali refugees from the Dadaab complex or to any other such facility in the country”.

Rights groups had previously pleaded with the Kenyan government to reconsider the decision to close the camp but to no avail.

The Kenya National Commission on Human rights and Amnesty International then filed a petition at the High court in Kenya to stop the camp closure, arguing the country was breaking international law by forcing over 300,000 refugees to go back to Somalia.

In a statement after the ruling, Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki said: “Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses.”

The camp was initially due to be closed on Nov. 30, 2016, but the government announced a six-month delay on "humanitarian grounds".