By Ashley Hamer – From The Guardian

Authorities in Somalia have denounced the way refugees are being repatriated from neighbouring Kenya, after the Kenyan government announced it would close Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, by the end of 2016.

Over the past five months, makeshift camps in Somalia’s southernmost border state have been swelling with families as thousands of refugees are repatriated as part of a UN scheme.

But Jubaland state authorities have now suspended the returns process, saying local services are overwhelmed and the repatriation process amounts to the “dumping of human beings in an undignified way”.

With Kenyan elections approaching and anti-refugee rhetoric spurred on by the fear of the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, the government announced in May that it would permanently close Dadaab – home to more than 320,000 Somalis spanning several generations – and send all Somali refugees home by the end of the year.

In May the Kenyan interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, claimed al-Shabaab fighters were using the camp as a base for smuggling weapons. “For reasons of pressing national security that speak to the safety of Kenyans in a context of terrorist and criminal activities, the government of the Republic of Kenya has commenced the exercise of closing Dadaab refugee complex,” he said.

The United Nations and other aid groups have criticised the move, suggesting it may not be possible to force large numbers of people over the border into a country where a war is still raging.

The programme to repatriate the refugees was first launched after an agreement was signed between the Kenyan government, United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Somali federal government in December 2013.

Read more at The Guardian