Struggle to avoid more refugee deaths in Mandera

The United Nations refugee agency is continuing to seek permission to move a group of Somali refugees, vulnerable and living in terrible conditions just a short distance from the fighting which drove them from their homes, but has so far been refused permission to do so by the Kenyan authorities.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and partner aid agencies were "struggling to help vulnerable Somali refugees" in the ramshackle border zone camp in Mandera, northeastern Kenya, where 17 people - most of them children - had died of disease and malnutrition since 2 June, Janowski said.

Aid agencies have warned "that the Mandera population is under extreme stress, and the new refugee influx is putting a strain on its resources".

Some 10,000 Somalis moved into Kenya after two rounds of inter-clan fighting in Bulo Hawa, inside Somalia across the border from Mandera, in April and May, but many of these have since moved back to settlements inside Somalia.

There were now some 250 vulnerable refugee families at the Kenyan camp - known as Border Point 1, a mere 500 metres from the border with Somalia - as well as another 100 vulnerable families in Mandera town, Janowski stated on 7 June. A number of families were headed by elderly women, and many included orphans and people with disabilities, it added.

Border Point 1 is considered totally inappropriate for refugees, especially as it is within firing range if fighting erupts in Bulo Hawa again. At least four refugees were killed when the second round of fighting broke out there on 15 May.

The UN refugee agency wanted to move the refugees to existing refugee camps deeper inside Kenya but had, so far, failed to persuade the Kenyan authorities to allow this, Janowski said on Friday. UNHCR had previously been negotiating to create an alternative temporary site in the vicinity of Mandera, but farther away from the border.

A relocation convoy organised last week to move a first group of 150 refugees to Dadaab refugee camp, some 500 km to the south, was also called off after the Kenyan authorities failed to give the green light.

Contaminated water and lack of proper food have been responsible for cases of diarrhoea and conjunctivitis in the Border Point 1 camp, according to UNHCR, which is trying to assist the refugees, with help from the NGOs Medecins Sans Frontieres-Spain (MSF) and Trocaire.

Serious cases of malaria, diarrhoea, anaemia and abdominal parasite infections have also been found among the refugees.

A new therapeutic feeding centre established by MSF received 14 new patients on 6 June and has already had two children - one a refugee and one a local resident - die while receiving treatment, according to Janowski. The local authorities in northeastern Kenya last week allowed aid workers to set up three supplementary feeding centres after the deaths of an initial 10 Somali refugees from malnutrition and disease.

In Mandera, meanwhile, refugee children "can be seen everywhere in Mandera town, scavenging for food, begging and trying to find work in the town to help their families survive", Janowski said. Refugee women, who often have to walk a fair distance to find firewood, are vulnerable to abuse, say refugee leaders.

Humanitarian officials are reported to be frustrated with the Kenyan government's attitude to the Somali refugee crisis in and around Mandera.

Kenya has long been wary of refugee flows from Somalia, especially in light of the public perception that they may add to insecurity, and the authorities are reported to be keen that the Somali refugees in Mandera go home as soon as possible.