Kenya university attack (Photo : REUTERS/Herman Kariuki)
The Kenyan government has given the United Nations three months to move the world's largest refugee camp over the border to Somalia. Nairobi has sworn a tough response to the recent massacre by Somali jihadists.
The United Nations Dadaab camp in northeast Kenya provides shelter to hundreds of thousands refugees from the war-torn Somalia. In the past, officials suspected that there were Islamists hiding within the camp.
Deputy President William Ruto said in a statement on Saturday that they have asked UNHCR to relocate the refugees within three months. And if the UN fails to do so, they will relocate the refugees themselves, Deutsche Welle reported. He added that the government will secure the country at whatever cost.
"The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa," he said, referring to the university where 148 people were killed by Somali al-Shabab terrorists.
The camp was established in 1991 and it is believed to be the largest refugee camp in the world. According to Ruto, it now houses over 600,000 people. However, the United Nations has put the number of registered refugees in the overcrowded complex at around 335,000.
A number of cases of kidnapping and bombing have been reported in the area since 2011, when Kenyan troops moved into Somalia to help the government in their fight.
Spokesman for the UNHCR in Kenya Emmanuel Nyabera said that they were yet to receive formal communication from the government regarding the relocation of Dadaab and as of now, he could not comment on it, ABC News reported.
Ruto also said that Kenya had started constructing a 700-kilometer wall along the border with Somalia in order to keep the members of al-Shabab out of their territory. They also warned any business that has anything to do with the insurgent group would be shut down immediately.
In the last two years, the al-Shabab militants have killed more than 400 people in Kenya, including 67 during a siege in Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013.
