UN refugee chief to visit Somali refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya

UN refugee chief to visit Somali refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya

2011-07-08 06:28:17 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres, on Thursday begin a four-day visit to review the condition of the Somali refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Guterres will check on the care provided to refugees fleeing Somalia. He will also review the emergency humanitarian response to the mass displacement of people due to armed conflict, severe drought and children malnutrition.

"Malnutrition rates among Somali refugee children arriving in Ethiopia and Kenya are alarmingly high and on a scale not seen in decades," said UNHCR Guterres.

More than 50 percent of the Somali children that have arrived to Ethiopia are seriously malnourished as well as between 30 to 40 percent of those arriving in Kenya, as informed by UNHCR on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Guterres visited refugee centers in Ethiopia and on Sunday he will travel to the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya, the largest refugee settlement in the world, with more than 380,000 Somali refugees.

During his four-day visit, the UN refugee chief will have talks with members of the Ethiopian and Kenyan governments, as well as the diplomatic community in both countries.

According to UNHCR, more than 135,000 Somalis have fled from the Horn of Africa nation so far this year due to the ongoing violence and devastating drought. In June, 54,000 Somalis sought asylum in neighboring countries, three times more than in May.

Bokolmanyo and Malkadida, the two established refugee camps in southeastern Ethiopia, have reached their full capacity. The complexes were opened in April 2009 and February 2010 respectively and each can accommodate up to 70,000 people.

Last week a new camp was opened in Kobe. Ethiopia hosts a total of 130,000 Somali refugees. Overall, there are more than 750,000 Somali refugees in countries in the region, mostly in neighboring Kenya (which hosts 405,000), Yemen (187,000) and Ethiopia (130,000). There also are about 1.46 million internally displaced people within Somalia.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-07-08