JEDDAH, 20 June — Hundreds of Somali asylum seekers are to be returned to their country by the British Home Office, the Sunday Times reported this week.
The first asylum seekers to be removed from Britain will be sent back to northwestern region of Somaliland. The source said the British government believes that northern regions of Somalia are now peaceful after years of inter-clan fighting.
Thousands of refugees in neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti have already repatriated to the area after the United Nations declared it to be relatively peaceful. The Home Office, says the paper, wants to repatriate asylum seekers to northeastern region of Punland. However, this area saw a fresh outbreak of violence late last year.
“Last year, about 6,500 Somalis claimed asylum in Britain, just over nine percent of all applications and the third highest nationality after Afghans and Iraqis. A sizable minority of those applicants came from northern Somalia and now face being sent back. A British delegation is due to travel to central and southern Somalia later this year. If it decides these areas also more peaceful, thousands more refugees will face being sent home,” said the paper.
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On Monday, Somali faction leader Abdirizak Issak Bihi, who was captured in inter-clan fighting in southwest Somalia in May, was released, according to media reports. Bihi allied with Transitional National Government (TNG) in Mogadishu. He was captured and arrested by militiamen loyal to pro-Ethiopian Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) when they overrun Bulo Hawo town in Gedo region last month. The SRRC is a grouping of warlords opposed to TNG.
UN humanitarian sources in the region were quoted as saying that they welcomed the release of Bihi as it might serve to encourage the return of the thousands of Somalis who fled the fighting last month. The refugees are currently living in a temporary camp in Kenya’s Mandera town.
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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will next week begin to transport more than 5,000 Somalis to Dadaab camp, 500 kilometers away from Kenya’s border with Somalia. “Kenyan authorities approved the transport operation. The first convoy is expected to take up to 180 people on a two-day journey,” UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski told reporters on Friday.
Somali refugees last month fled the Kenya’s Mandera town to escape clan fighting in their southwestern Gedo region. UNHCR said earlier that it believed Kenya was withholding approval because authorities feared the refugees would stay permanently in the country. “UNHCR will continue to provide medical care and food to the remaining refugees as they wait their turn to move to the camp,” Janowski added. Human Rights Watch has recently warned Kenya against deporting hundreds of Somalis and Ethiopians who fled their home countries.
