UN Should Relocate Somali Refugee Camp in Kenya – Official

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) should resettle the Somali refugee camp situated in Garissa county in Kenya within three months, Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said Saturday in a statement.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The request was introduced after a gunman from Somali military group Al-Shabaab killed 147 people at the Garissa University College earlier this month.

"We have asked the UNHCR to relocate the refugees in three months failure to which we shall relocate them ourselves. The way America changed after 9/11 is the way Kenya will change after Garissa," Ruto was quoted as saying by All Africa newspaper.

Earlier in the day, a UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that the Kenyan authorities did not send a formal request concerning the refugee camp to the agency.

The Dadaab refugee camp situated 60 miles from Kenyan-Somali border in the Garissa district was open in 1991 when a civil war broke out in neighboring Somalia. More than 600,000 people currently live here.

In 2013, an agreement on voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees living in the Dadaab camp was signed between Kenya, Somalia and the UNHCR.