Kenya

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia has questioned Kenya's plans to close the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, which have hosted thousands of refugees from Somalia and South Sudan, in a move that could further pressure relations between the two countries. Earlier in the week, Kenya, through Home Secretary Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang'i an ultimatum to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and demanded that the two camps be closed without negotiations. Nairobi said the UN body should spend a maximum of 14 days to…

Kenya is calling for the closure of two large refugee camps on its territory. There are more than 500,000 refugees in the Dadaab and Kakuma sites, mainly Somalis for the first and South Sudanese for the second. Nairobi cites security reasons. A message that worries but whose application promises to be extremely complex. The Minister of the Interior gave humanitarian workers 14 days to establish a timetable for closure. Fred Matiangi said there was "no more room for negotiation" and that the government had "an obligation…

Kenya issued an order on Wednesday to close two large-scale camps home to hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring Somalia, giving the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) two weeks to present a plan to implement the order, the Interior Ministry said. Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in northern Kenya together host more than 410,000 people, a small proportion of whom come from South Sudan. Authorities in Nairobi first announced their intention to close the Dadaab camp, which…

Kenya is closing the world's largest refugee camp amid strained ties with Somalia NAIROBI, Kenya - The Kenyan government has issued a 14-day ultimatum to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to close two key refugee camps in yet another step that could escalate the security crisis even across the country's borders. In a statement from the Secretary of the Interior, Dr.…

Kenya now wants the dispute over the maritime border with Somalia to be withdrawn from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and resolved through bilateral negotiations. This comes days after Kenya decided not to take part in the maritime delimitation case in court. In a statement sent to news outlets, the Foreign Ministry insisted that Somalia should only normalize its relations with Kenya following their 'unprovoked and unjustified' decision to sever diplomatic relations. "... Kenya reached the decision not to…

NAIROBI - Kenya has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to all diplomats residing there, including thousands of UN staff, although it has not completed the inoculation of its own health workers, other front-line staff or seniors who draw criticism from local doctors. The offer was made in a March 18 letter sent by the State Department to diplomatic missions and seen by Reuters. Macharia Kamau, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, said the shots offered were delivered through the World Health Organization (WHO) co-led COVAX…

The hearings of the UN International Court of Justice on the dispute between Kenya and Somalia ended on Thursday 18 March. Somalia made its final remarks, still in the absence of Kenya, which refused to lodge its case. The case is now under advice. The verdict should be known in a few months. The last hearing before the UN…

Somalia delivers closing arguments in maritime border dispute THE HAAG, The Netherlands - Somalia asked the United Nations Supreme Court to overturn Kenya's request for a latitude maritime border stretching into the Indian Ocean in a decades-old legal dispute between the two East African nations. Kenya abruptly withdrew from the case, days before they were due to start on Monday,…

ICJ concludes hearing on Kenya-Somalia's maritime border case HAGUE, Netherlands - The International Court of Justice will on Thursday conclude the hearing on the maritime border dispute between Kenya and Somalia after nearly a week of submissions to the Hague-based court, which has jurisdiction to deal with the cases. In the last week, the court has dealt with the case after…

Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister is hoping for a 'happy' outcome in the maritime case MOGADISHU, Somalia - Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia, Mahdi Mohamed Guled, said on Tuesday that he hoped the outcome of the maritime dispute between Kenya and Somalia, which is currently before The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), would be "a source of joy for all Somalis." "I…