UNHCR says over 3,000 refugees arrived in Kenya's camp in July

The UN refugee agency said on Friday some 3,175 refugees mainly from Somalia arrived in Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya in July. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the overall population in the Alinjugur/Dadaab camps stood at 468,770 persons as at Oct. 30. According to the agency, Hagadersa camp has 139,597 refugees, Dagahaley has 123,369, Ifo has 113,619, Ifo 2 has 76,090 and Kambioos has 16,095, bringing the total number of refugees living the Dadaab refugee complex to 468,770. "Because of the on-going verification exercise and the government's temporary suspension of full-scale registration activities the population numbers will be fluctuating over the coming months," UNHCR said in its report for November. "They will at times be adjusted downwards, often after a verification exercise, or upwards during the periods where registration is being conducted. It is most likely that the number is much higher given the inaccuracy of the method for counting." The new office, called Alinjugur, which also hosts some refugees, is located in Fafi District, around 80 kilometers from the Somali border and some 20km from the main UNHCR compound in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp. Dadaab has been providing protection, shelter and humanitarian assistance to Somali refugees for two decades often under difficult and complex circumstances. Chronic overcrowding, a risk of disease, and seasonal floods are among these challenges. The agency said the Kenyan government continues to suspend registration, but noted that there might be an opportunity for another one-time registration for those new arrivals that have not yet been registered. According to UNHCR, in October, around 1,800 individuals may have been crossing the border into Kenya (passing through and/or staying in Dadaab for a period) according to estimates from Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK) and UNHCR. Some unconfirmed reports indicate that up to ten families arrive every week from the Amuma area along the Kenya-Somalia border. Somali people are facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today with one in three Somalis being in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and one in every three children living in the South-Central region is malnourished. According to UNHCR, about 62,000 Somalis became refugees in the region surrounding their country between January and the end of September while more than 25,000 of these fled to Ethiopia, making it the largest recipient of Somali refugees in the region so far this year. "As well as Somalis, who constitute the largest refugee group, Ethiopia also hosts more than 91,000 Sudanese refugees, almost 61, 000 Eritreans, and 4,000 refugees from other countries. Every month, Ethiopia generously takes thousands of new arrivals from neighboring countries," UNHCR said. By comparison, the UN refugee agency said Yemen registered 15, 000 Somali refugees, Kenya 13,000, Uganda 6,800 and Djibouti 2,300 over the same period. According to UNHCR, overall the number of Somali refugees in the region numbers more than a million. "Half of these are in Kenya, while Ethiopia now hosts 214,000–in camps at Dollo Ado and several hundred kilometers to the north at Jijiga," it said.