Somali refugees being transferred from Mandera to Dadaab

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has transferred up to 1,043 Somali refugees, who have been stranded for weeks in the northeastern Kenyan border town of Mandera, to the Dadaab refugee camp 500 km to the south.

The refugees are part of a group of 10,000 who fled inter-clan fighting in the Somali town of Bulo Hawa near the border with Kenya starting in April, and have been camped in and around Mandera under difficult conditions.

Emmanuel Nyabera, the information officer at the UNHCR office in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN that about 4,000 of the refugees were still stranded in Mandera. "Nothing has changed in terms of the situation. We are still giving support to the sick and the vulnerable and supporting the hospitals there," he said.

The transfer follows the approval UNHCR received from the Kenya government on 14 June to move the refugees. About 5,000 of the original number went home during May, allegedly under pressure from Somali and Kenyan officials.

Initially, UNHCR had hoped to transfer at least 3,496 refugees to Dadaab, but the registration process had been slow, according to Nyabera. As a result, the agency is anticipating moving about 2,000. The next convoy will be leaving on Thursday.

Fighting erupted in the Bulo Hawa region in April between an alliance of the Marehan sub-clans of Rer Hasan, Hawarsame and Habar Ya’qub, who are supported by the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), and the sub-clans close to Somalia’s Transitional National Government, which is opposed by the SRRC. The Marehan clan currently dominates the area.

UNHCR said it was developing two new sites to house the refugees in the Hagadera camp within Dadaab. Meanwhile, the refugees who had already been transferred to Dadaab were being assisted at a transit facility, according to the UNHCR statement. "We have food items there, medical screening [is available] and latrines are being built for further sanitation," said Nyabera.

Kenya hosts about 250,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, 130,000 of them from Somalia, according to UNHCR.