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Protecting the Displaced: Kenya Context 2011

Nansen Initiative Regional Consultation 21 May 2014. Protecting the Displaced: Kenya Context 2011. Asylum in Kenya. Kenya has welcomed a great number of asylum seekers from the region fleeing due to various reasons.

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Protecting the Displaced: Kenya Context 2011

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  1. Nansen Initiative Regional Consultation 21 May 2014 Protecting the Displaced:Kenya Context 2011

  2. Asylum in Kenya • Kenya has welcomed a great number of asylum seekers from the region fleeing due to various reasons. • In 2011, the country received a large number of persons who were displaced due to the onset of drought in the horn of Africa that impacted a number of the neighbouring states • Somali asylum seekers constituted the largest number of those received in the Country.

  3. Influx of Somali Refugees in 2011

  4. Dadaab Influx for 2011 • Up to 1,000 arriving in Dadaab per day (at its peak in August 2011) • Over 150,000 people arrived in Kenya. • The refugees, that comprised predominately of women and children, arrived in deplorable and vulnerable state after days of walking and in dire need of: • urgent medical and • humanitarian assistance.

  5. Legal Framework • Government of Kenya ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol in 1966 and 1981 respectively. • It also ratified the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa in 1972. • The Government has translated the key elements of the international refugee protection regime through the adoption of the 2006 Refugees Act.

  6. OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa • Article 1 (2) of the OAU Convention defines refugees not only in the terms provide for in the 1951 Convention but also as individuals who have had to flee “owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin...” • Given the propensity of natural disasters to seriously disturb the public order, the Kenyan context interpreted that those persons displaced due to the drought and having crossed international borders into Kenya would be counted as refugees under this definition.

  7. Kenya Refugees Act 2006 • Section 3 (2) defines a prima facie refugee as such persons “owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order…”

  8. Protecting the Displaced • The Department of Refugee Affairs and UNHCR also recognized that these individuals had fled from Somalia both due to the drought and the insecurity. • In 2011, this allowed DRA and UNHCR to receive, register and provide protection and assistance to those who were displaced from Somalia.

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