Drought, insecurity drive more Somalis into Kenya

Insecurity and drought have driven some 1,780 Somali refugees into Kenya since the beginning of January, a spokesman from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday. However, the latest arrivals did not constitute a significant population movement, said spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera. "We have seen an increase in the number of people arriving from Somalia since the beginning of January, but we cannot say there has been an 'influx'," he said. There are more than 100,000 Somali refugees living in three camps in the Dadaab area of Kenya's Northeastern Province, which borders on Somalia. Most of the refugees in Dadaab arrived in the 1990s, to flee the fighting and famine caused by Somalia's civil war. Today, an estimated 1.7 million people in northern, central and southern Somalia are facing an acute food and livelihood crisis or humanitarian emergency because of prevailing drought. The high-risk regions include Middle Juba, Lower Juba, Bay and Bakol. Recent insecurity in the country has also caused people to leave their homes and hindered efforts to deliver humanitarian relief. Scores were killed in factional fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in February and March. Kenya's Northeastern Province is also suffering from the prevailing drought. UNHCR officials have noticed that Kenyans have begun to move closer to the refugee camps, where they can benefit from services that had been established by humanitarian agencies for the refugees, including water and health facilities.