Kenya Seeks to Voluntarily Repatriate 100,000 Somalis

Kenya has set a goal to get 100,000 Somali refugees to return home voluntarily by the end of the year

Displaced boys who fled their home after a Saudi-led airstrike destroyed their houses, live in a school in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, May 14, 2015. AP Photo/Hani Mohammed

NAIROBI, Kenya—Kenya has set a goal to get 100,000 Somali refugees to return home voluntarily by the end of the year, a government official said Thursday as money shortages have forced the U.N. to reduce food rations for the displaced.

Government officials have blamed refugee camps in Kenya for a rise in extremism. Following an April 2 attack by Islamic extremists on Garissa University College in eastern Kenya that killed 148 people, Deputy President William Ruto gave the U.N. refugee agency three months to close the Dadaab camp where at least 300,000 Somalis live.

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