Displaced Somalis asked to return to Buro-ache

Kenyan authorities have asked thousands of refugees who entered the country earlier this year after fleeing inter-clan fighting in the Somali town of Buro-ache to return to their homes across the border, arguing that the town was now calm. "The town is now peaceful and we have asked them to leave," said James Kobia, the district officer in charge of the northeastern Kenyan town of El-Wak, where an estimated 17,000 refugees were accommodated by the local community. The refugees fled fighting in April between the Marehan and Garre clans over the control of the trading town of Buro-ache, known as El-Waaq on the Somali side of the border. Most of the refugees came from the Garre community. Kobia said an estimated 300 families or 1,500 individuals had left El-Wak since the local authorities ordered the refugees to leave on Friday. Lack of transport had prevented more people from leaving, he said. He said, however, the refugees returning to Buro-ache would experience severe water shortage. "The problem is clean water. Most of the wells were contaminated and they could even contain dead bodies," said Kobia. An incident on the night of 6 October when an explosive device went off in a hotel in El-Wak was also "partly" the reason why the refugees had been asked to leave. "The decision is partly for securuty reasons," he said. Several people were slightly injured in the blast. Kenyan authorities, he added, would not use force to expel the refugees, but would "encourage" them to go back now that there was no more fighting in Buro-ache. According to Abdul Ibrahim Haro, coordinator of the Conflict and Disaster Project in the Eastern Africa office of the Intermediate Technology Development Group, the refugees were asked to leave on Friday morning. Since then, scores of families had pitched camp in the border village of El Kala on the Kenyan side, and El Banda on the Somali side of the border. "The [Kenyan] government is trying to pressure these people to go back," Haro said. "They [refugees] feel threatened by the local administration," he added. Kenya authorities sponsored reconciliation meetings in August between representatives from the warring Marehan and Garre communities from Buro-ache that culminated in the signing of a ceasefire pact. The underlining cause of the conflict - land ownership and how to share administrative posts between the two communities - has, however, not been addressed. Haro said Kenyan officials in Mandera district, where El-Wak is situated, were apparently too eager to show that their peace efforts had succeeded hence the decision to have the refugees return to Buro-ache. "There is still fear and suspicion among the refugees. They have also said that drought and lack of water mean that conditions are not yet right to return," Haro said.