The High Court has nullified a government directive that ordered refugees living in urban areas to return to camps.
Justice David Majanja ruled that the directive, issued on 18th December 2012 and 16th January 2013, threatens the rights and fundamental freedoms of the refugees as vulnerable group of the society.
The government issued the orders following a spate of attacks in Kenya’s northeastern Somali regions as well as in the capital Nairobi, with several blasts in the largely ethnic Somali district of Eastleigh.
“The Government Directive, contained in the Press Releases and Correspondence dated the 18th December 2012 and 16th January 2013 respectively, be and is hereby quashed,” ruled Justice Majanja.
Kituo Cha Sheria and seven other refugees residing in Kenya moved to the High Court in January to challenge the directive and obtained a conservatory order that suspended the directive.
The directive had also required UNHCR and other partners serving refugees are asked to stop providing direct services to asylum seekers and refugees in the urban areas.
The terrorist attacks are usually blamed on members or sympathisers of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab fighters, although they have made no claim to the series of blasts, which escalated after Kenyan troops invaded Somalia last year.
According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees, over 33,600 Somali refugees live in Nairobi alone and the country hosts refugees from nine nations in total.
But Justice Majanja observed that the State failed to demonstrate the proliferation of the refugees in urban areas is the main source of insecurity.
The judge said although national security is important and should not be compromised; there was nothing to justify the use security operation to violate the rights of urban based refugees.
“A real connection must be established between the affected persons and the danger to national security posed and how the indiscriminate removal of all the urban refugees would alleviate the insecurity threats in those areas,” said the Judge.
The Judge said the action may make some petitioners to flee and return home or go somewhere unsafe which is threat to their lives.
The government was instead asked to be more creative and devise a way that can consider individual circumstances instead of a blanket action.
Kenya currently hosts an estimated 600,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers drawn from countries including Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The government had intended to move all refugees residing in urban areas to the Dadaab and Kakuma Refugee Camps and later to their home countries after the necessary arrangements are put in place.
The first phase targeted 18000 refugees and was to commence on January 21 before the court halted the move.
The security officers were to start by rounding the refugees and transporting them to Thika Municipal Stadium which would act as the holding ground as arrangements for moving them to the camps were finalised.
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