Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Yemen and Saudi Arabia: The Situation of Somali Refugees

1. INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Department of State has described the civil war and famine which have afflicted Somalia since the downfall of Mohamed Siad Barre as the world's greatest humanitarian disaster (Africa Watch and Physicians for Human Rights 26 Mar. 1992, 1). The dimensions of the tragedy pose serious problems for neighbouring countries, which cannot cope with the influx of thousands of refugees.
                The southern and central provinces of Somalia are currently in the grip of blind clan warfare. Although several ceasefire agreements have been signed under the aegis of the United Nations, fierce fighting continues in several parts of the country. According to Amnesty International, the victims of the current conflict are "systematically targeted on account of their clan origin." It adds that between November 1991 and April 1992, in Mogadishu alone, violent clashes between rival clans left over 10,000 dead and 27,000 injured Serious violations of human rights, including mass kilings, committed in that city by the forces of General Aydid and those of Ali Mahdi have been well-documented (Amnesty International 5 Aug. 1992; Africa Watch 13 Feb. 1992; Africa Watch and Physicians for Human Rights 26 Mar. 1992). The newly-founded "Republic of Somaliland," which encompasses most of northern Somalia, has not escaped the violence either, and there are indicators that the situation there is becoming increasingly unstable (for further information, see a previous DIRB Question and Answer Series paper entitled Somalia: the North).
                Hundreds of thousands of Somali civilians have fled the current civil war and famine in their country. According to UNHCR estimates, they number over a million (AFP 21 Aug. 1992b; UPI 21 Aug. 1992). A large majority are located in overcrowded camps hastily assembled in neighbouring countries (UPI 21 Aug. 1992). At least 375,000 are now in Ethiopia, 270,000 in Kenya, 150,000 in Saudi Arabia, 44,000 in Yemen and 20,000 in Djibouti, according to UNHCR statistics (UNHCR 21 Aug. 1992). Many others have gone to Southeast Asian countries (Singapore, Thailand or Pakistan).

2. THE SITUATION OF REFUGEES IN NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES

Following flight from the civil war, Somali refugees arrive weak and starving in neighbouring countries, which are often ill-prepared to receive them. There they encounter local governments, which are often hostile, and are housed in overcrowded camps to which it is difficult to channel international aid (Amnesty International 5 Aug. 1992). Although the conditions in which they are received vary from country to country, all those in camps administered by the UNHCR are considered refugees by that organization (UNHCR 24 Sept. 1992).

2.1 Kenya

The Kenyan government was long reluctant to accept Somali refugees. Under pressure from international bodies, particularly the UNHCR, the government finally agreed to address refugee aid seriously when it was overcome by the scope of the problem itself. In January 1991, most former leaders of the Siad Barre regime sought refuge with their families in Kenya's largest cities. Later, the fighting in southern Somalia drove large contingents of Somali civilians across the border. The few existing camps were literally swamped. The Liboi camp, for example, initially designed as a transit camp for a maximum of 3,000 people, in May 1992 housed some 68,000 refugees (Réfugiés May 1992).
                The Kenyan government's attitude to Somali refugees is influenced by the presence of a large Somali minority (Kenyan Somalis) in the Northern Frontier District. Since the country's independence, the central government has considered them "shiftas" (a Kenyan word meaning "bandits"), troublemakers and second-class citizens (for further information, see a previous IRBDC Question and Answer Series paper entitled Kenya: Restoration of Multiparty Government and Kenyans of Somali Origin). Their presence, combined with the recent influx of Somali refugees, arouses Kenyan fears of a "pan-Somalia movement," threatening the country's territorial integrity (Le Monde 17 Aug. 1992).

                In this context, Kenyan police have accused Somali refugees of instigating the recent resurgence of violence and delinquency in Kenya (Le Devoir 18 Aug. 1992). Police actions against refugees have consisted mainly of confiscating their money and the few possessions they have been able to bring with them, and beating those who make attempts to resist (Ibid.). Police recently evacuated sick or injured refugees from Nairobi hotels and hospitals under a programme aimed at moving masses of refugees out of the capital to the already saturated border camps. UNHCR representatives and journalists were denied access to the areas throughout the operation (AFP 21 Aug. 1992a).
                Disease and destitution afflict those refugees, most of them women and children, who arrive in Kenya on foot or by boat, sick and starving (Le Monde 17 Aug. 1992). A large majority congregate in the camps and border cities of Liboi, Ifo, Hagadera, Dagahaley, Wajir, Mandera and Marsabit, located in the semi-desert regions of the Northern Frontier District. Here living conditions remain extremely precarious due to water and food shortages, epidemics and security problems resulting from the presence of armed looters in the camps (The Gazette 25 Apr. 1992; Réfugiés May 1992, 27-28; Reuters 20 May 1992). According to a UNHCR official, in April 1992 the death rates in these camps were among the highest in the world and were reaching unbearable proportions (Ibid.).
                Many Somali boat people set off in overloaded crafts, only to die at sea. For example, half of the 600 Somalis crowded into a medium-sized freighter which arrived in the port of Mombasa in August 1992 had died before the end of the voyage (Le Monde 17 Aug. 1992). Most of the survivors found refuge in the Utange camp, near Mombasa.
                According to the UNHCR, about one-thousand Somalis have crossed the Kenyan border each day since the beginning of August 1992 (Le Devoir 18 Aug. 1992; AFP 21 Aug. 1992b). Today, nearly 400,000 of them are in Kenya, and the figure could double by the end of the year (Le Monde 17 Aug. 1992). In light of these new statistics, it is hard to predict how Kenyan authorities will react in the months to come. Recently, they delayed in shipping urgently needed U.S. emergency aid to those refugees. According to the CARE Canada representative in the Horn of Africa, "Supplying refugees becomes a delicate matter when Kenyans themselves are starving to death" (The Washington Post 21 Aug. 1992; The Gazette 25 Apr. 1992).

2.2 Ethiopia

Following an attack on the main northern cities by the Somali National Movement (SNM) in May 1988, over 600,000 refugees fled to Ethiopia. In retaliation for the support given to the SNM by local inhabitants, President Mohamed Siad Barre had set his troops and air force against the civilian population and the "rebels," entirely destroying the city of Hargeisa and forcing hundreds of thousands of Somalis in the North to seek refuge in Ethiopia (Le Monde 23 May 1991).
                The fighting which raged throughout the country - and especially in Mogadishu - after the fall of Mohamed Siad Barre caused hundreds of thousands more to flee. In May 1991, for example, some 200,000 ethnic Somalis from Ethiopia (Ogaden and Gadaboursi), most of whom had sought refuge in Somalia following the Ogaden war in 1977, were forced to cross the border again to Ethiopia, which was itself experiencing ethnic warfare following Colonel Mengistu's fall from power (Le Monde 23 May 1991). At present, famine prevails in Ethiopia's makeshift camps, such as Derwanaji, Gode, Kelafo and Dolo. The camps are located in a semi-desert area where access is difficult, as there are no roads fit for vehicles; and relief efforts are impeded by sporadic fighting (Ibid.; IPS 20 Aug. 1992). As some Ethiopian Somalis fought against the SNM in May 1988 on the side of Mohamed Siad Barre's troops (after being forcibly recruited), they fear reprisals from the Issaqs, who now control the North, if they return to Somalia (Le Monde 23 May 1991; The Independent 22 June 1992).
                Other refugees, for the most part Issaqs, are still in the crowded camps where they have been since Hargeisa was destroyed in May 1988 (Le Monde 23 May 1991). Their return to the independent "Somaliland" poses a problem for authorities, since the self-proclaimed republic does not have the necessary infrastructure to accommodate them (Gilkes July 1992). As for members of clans traditionally hostile to the Issaq, who fled the new Republic of Somaliland and are now refugees in Ethiopian camps, such as the Gadaboursi, they have expressed reservations about the possibility of repatriation, fearing reprisals from the SNM (Ryle Jan. 1992, 13; Reuters 18 May 1992).

2.3 Saudi Arabia and Yemen

Most Somalis who settled in Saudi Arabia before the fall of Mohamed Siad Barre are immigrant workers. Very little information is available, however, on the fate of those who have sought refuge there in recent months by boat or otherwise. Saudi Arabia is nonetheless known for its policies of discrimination against refugees in general, regardless of whether or not they are Muslim. In March 1991, for example, shortly after the downfall of Mohamed Siad Barre and when fighting was fierce in both northern and southern Somalia, Saudi Arabia deported some 950 immigrant workers to Somalia. They were held up for over two weeks in the port of Berbera, in an area controlled by the SNM. These expelled immigrants, most of whom belonged to the Hawiye clan family (a rival of the Issaqs), refused to leave the ship, fearing for their safety. According to a UNHCR spokesperson, a eighty eventually agreed to disembark, after which the ship headed to the port of Aden in Yemen (Le Monde 17-18 Mar. 1991; BBC Summary 18 Mar. 1991; AFP 21 Mar. 1991; Reuters 26 Mar. 1991). Later the same year, another ship tried to unload Somali refugees on the coast of Saudi Arabia but Saudi authorities prevented it from landing (The Washington Post 4 July 1992).
                In May 1991, some 10,000 Somali refugees had fled the fighting in southern Somalia to seek refugee in Yemen, mainly in the ports of Aden and Hodeida (Reuters 27 May 1991). Temporary camps were set up in the provinces of Aden, Taiz and Shabwa (AFP 13 Jan. 1992). Yemen was at that time coping with an influx of Yemenis repatriated from the Persian Gulf. With limited supplies of food and water, the country was forced to ask for international assistance (Ibid.).
                By April 1992, an estimated 40,000 Somalis had fled the "Republic of Somaliland" by boat to Yemen (The Gazette 25 Apr. 1992). The movement of Somali boat people who had been landing on the shores of Yemen since the summer of 1991 culminated in an incident involving the freighter Goob Wein in June 1992. While anchored in Mogadishu, the ship was stormed by over three thousand desperate refugees and then drifted to Yemen (Xinhua 23 June 1992; AP 24 June 1992; The Washington Post 4 July 1992). During a ten-day odyssey and after permission to land had been denied by Yemeni authorities caught unprepared by such a flood of people, at least 150 refugees perished due to hunger, thirst and heat (Ibid. 4 July 1992; AP 24 June 1992). Desperate survivors attempted to swim to shore and many drowned (AP 24 June 1992). The government of Yemen granted temporary asylum to the remaining refugees because of international pressure, although it had prohibited any other boat carrying Somali refugees from landing (Ibid.). The two main camps of Hiswa and Madinat al Shaab, set up with UNHCR assistance, housed over 55,000 Somali boat people in early August 1992 (The Globe and Mail 8 Aug. 1992).

2.4 Djibouti

Persistent insecurity and civil wars in Ethiopia and Somalia have brought a flood of refugees into Djibouti. Shortly before the Siad Barre regime fell in January 1991, Somali soldiers concluded an agreement with Djibouti army officers, which recognized the former as political refugees in Djibouti. In exchange, the Somalis surrendered their weapons and transferred control of occupied zones in northern Somalia to the United Somali Front (USF), an Issa-based group recently formed there under pressure from authorities in Djibouti (The Indian Ocean Newsletter 26 Jan. 1992, 3). Approximately 800 refugees, most of them soldiers, were quickly sent back to Somalia (BBC Summary 30 Apr. 1991).
                Refugees from Somalia are aided by the families ties and cultural and linguistic affinities uniting all Somalis. Whereas the Djibouti government opens its doors to some refugees as "Issas from abroad" because they belong to the same clan as President Gouled, others are turned back on the grounds that their presence contributes to destabilization and social tension (Jeune Afrique 27 Aug. 1991; Africa Confidential 9 Aug. 1991; Africa Watch 30 Oct. 1989).
                Fearing inundation by tens of thousands of refugees, authorities in Djibouti avoided opening official refugee camps until very recently. According to one source, the Djibouti government would like to deport as many refugees as possible. In April 1992, authorities rounded up some 300 Somali refugees who were struggling to survive in the streets of the capital and transferred them to the camps furthest from the city. These refugees had earlier left the temporary camps because of lack of food and overcrowding (AFP 20 Apr. 1992).
                Somali refugees in Djibouti are mainly concentrated in the camps of Ali Adde (12,000), near the city of Ali Sabieh, and Holl-Holl (21,000) (Ibid.).

3. EXIT AND RETURN

The UNHCR office in Ottawa recently confirmed that its organization has postponed the implementation of programmes to repatriate all Somali refugees living in neighbouring countries (UNHCR 20 Aug. 1992).
                In a press release dated 27 July 1992, the Canadian Section of Amnesty International stated, "Somalia is a humanitarian disaster. People are deliberately killed solely because they belong to a clan. The country is in a state of civil war between several armed groups." The press release concluded that, because of the conditions prevailing in the country at that time, Amnesty International opposed any deportation to Somalia.
                The UNHCR is now seeking possibilities for emergency resettlement for at least 300 refugees and their families. These people, "seriously injured survivors of torture, war wounded needing intensive care and lengthy convalescence, and 'vulnerable women', most of them rape victims, who will have difficulty returning to Somali society once peace has been restored," are in urgent need of care and convalescence abroad. Nevertheless, very few countries seem disposed to accept them. As UNHCR's head of resettlement, Gary Troeller, recently stated:

Sometimes it seems as if nobody cares. Response to our requests has been very disappointing, to say the least. Somali refugees are one of the most difficult groups to resettle (UNHCR 21 Aug. 1992; La Presse 18 Aug. 1992).
                The situation remains uncertain in the countries bordering Somalia as they are themselves concerned with their own domestic situations and do not have sufficient resources to accommodate a stream of impoverished refugees. The dimensions of the Somali problem and the current cycle of violence make it improbable that Somali refugees will be repatriated in the near future.

4. APPENDIX: MAP

See original

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