H.E. Mr Antonio Guterres
United Nations Secretary-General
United Nations Headquarters
New York City/Geneva
September 2022
Kakuma, Kenya
RE: Support to facilitate durable solutions for refugees in Kenya
Your Excellency,
Please accept our warm congratulations on your second appointment and our best wishes for your success as continue to take on the responsibilities and challenges of your high office for the next five years.
By offering us the opportunity of your ongoing leadership, as you undertook your new responsibilities at the beginning of 2022 you have shown that the UN has been standing with refugees globally.
The number of people forced to flee conflict, war, persecution, human rights abuses and climate-induced displacement has now surpassed half a million in Kenya. Kenya continues to host thousands of refugees from across the region and has done for decades. At the time of writing, Kenya is generously hosting more than half a million displaced persons and is struggling with limited resources.
As we look forward to the 73rd session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme (10-14 October 2022) we reiterate: The importance of enhancing efforts in the search for an urgent durable solution to refugee situations in Kenya and the importance of enhanced burden and responsibility-sharing, as pledged in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees.
Refugees in Kenya are grateful for the recent visit made by the High Commissioner for Refugees, to the Kakuma refugee camp, as a reaffirmation of his shared vision and interest in finding lasting solutions for the thousands of refugees hosted in protracted situations in Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps.
Over the past decade, Kenya has issued statements seeking to close these two refugee camps, with the most recent closure statement made in 2021. Following a bilateral meeting between His Excellency, the then President of Kenya and the High Commissioner for Refugees on 29 April 2021, the Government of Kenya and UNHCR issued a joint statement on the roadmap for the closure of Kakuma and Dadaab camps in Kenya. The deadline for the closure of both camps was set for 30 June 2022. Now, it has been three months.
Today, more than half a million forcibly displaced persons in Kenya are in unendurable situations and are counting on the international community, UN Member States and other key stakeholders to drive forward lasting durable solutions.
Mr Secretary-General, we embrace your words spoken during the statement of the 77th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations: “we live in a world where the logic of cooperation and dialogue is the only path forward”. We respectfully request further action and ask for your urgent help to convene meetings of the international community, key stakeholders, UN Member States and other private industries to better understand the refugee situation in Kenya and to facilitate durable solutions at such a critical time.
Your leadership during this challenging time and your call that “We need hope …. and more. We need action” must be heeded and transformed into action for the refugees living in Kenya and for the country that has been hosting them for almost three decades.
Sincerely,
Tolossa Asrat
On behalf of refugees and the host