Somaliland: Rehabilitation & Resettlement Minister Asserts that immediate Resettlement from Djibouti is not in Offing

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Hol-hol refugee camp in Djibouti

By: Osman A.M.

HARGEISA (Somalilandsun) – Somaliland’s minister for Reconstruction rehabilitation & resettlement minister Hon. Ahmed Abdi Kahin has hinted that his ministry does not intend to resettle Somaliland’s refugees camped in Djibouti refugee camps to Lughaya town soon because prior & adequate arrangements are to be finalized pending the relocation exercise.

The minister revisited how the said refugees ended in Djibouti narrating that they moved out of the country more than 50 years ago before independence in 1960 when the country was still under colonial era adding that relocation to their motherland cannot take place unless and until adequate social amenities are put in place for their enjoyment of social & economic rights like drilling water wells where they & their livestock can access water.

Hon. Kahin maintained that there was no urgency for the relocation scheme to take immediate effect adding that what was resolved recently with Djiboutian administration & UNHCR officials were long term strategies deliberated within the national politics in which Somaliland’s policies for resettling its people were planned in advance.

The minister anticipated,

“Our refugees would not be relocated immediately unless sufficient safeguards inform of land in which they would be resettled as well as social amenities are structurally put in place”.

Hon. Kahin however vowed that his administration was serious in relocating the refugees who majority of them were settled there by the colonial regime.

The issue of voluntarily relocating local citizens based in Djiboutian IDP camps cropped up during a tripartite meeting involving the representatives of Somaliland & Djiboutian Government officials on one hand and United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) officials of the two nations took place in Zeila town of Salal region deliberating on the modalities of resettling Somaliland refugees camped at Ali Adde & Hol-hol refugee camps back to their motherland.