Garissa County Peace Committee has appealed to the national government to temporarily stop the ongoing repatriation of Dadaab refugees from the camps in order to allow for the establishment of transitional camps in Somalia.
In an interview with a local news agency on Tuesday, Osman Shurie, who is the secretary to the board said the global refugees agency should work with the Kenyan and Somali authorities to ensure there are no gaps in the whole repatriation drive.
"I am appealing to the UNHCR, the Somali and the Kenyan governments to swiftly expedite the establishment of fully fledged transition camps that are equipped with basic social amenities to avoid any situation that might compel the refugees to return back to Dadaab camps in future,” Osman said.
He added that it might also prove so easy for Al-Shabaab recruiters to take advantage of emerging gaps to eventually recruit the desperate refugees into their terror cells.
Even as this happens, a recent report by the Human Rights Watch issued that many Somali refugees moving out of Dadaab allegedly faced violence, extreme poverty and lack of shelter.