Refugee returns a strain on Somaliland - USCR

Somali refugees are returning from Ethiopia to the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, with little international help, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) stated in a report on Wednesday, 26 December. "With negligible help from the international community, Somaliland continues to absorb tens of thousands of refugees repatriating from eastern Ethiopia," according to USCR. Such a massive return of refugees, albeit welcome, was "placing additional stress on Somaliland's fragile, war-torn infrastructure," it added. Some 4,000 Somali refugees - many from the Burao area, in the Toghdeer Region of northwestern Somalia - returned to Somalia on 22 and 23 December, according to the UN refugee agency. The Somali refugee population in Daror, eastern Ethiopia, now stands at just 2,437, and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) hopes to be able to close the camp before the end of the month. Since the process of voluntary repatriation of refugees to northwestern Somalia started in 1997, over 181,000 had left camps in eastern Ethiopia, The continuing lack of meaningful assistance to returning refugees was curtailing the already weak capacity of Somaliland's government and international agencies "striving to properly reintegrate returnees", according to USCR. Returning refugees receive an assistance package to help them get started in their former homes, including basic household items and a nine months' supply of food, according to UNHCR. If Daror becomes the third of eight Ethiopian camps for Somali refugees to be shut this year - Teferiber and Darwanaji were closed in June - the five sites remaining will host a total of 66,876 refugees: 11,642 in Hartisheik, 11,634 in Kebribeyah, 19,849 in Camaboker, 9,811 in Rabasso and 13,940 in Aisha.