Feeling the Pinch: Kenya, Al-Shabaab, And East Africa's Refugee Crisis‪.‬

With the situation in Somalia deteriorating by the minute, time is of the essence. No one is feeling the pinch as much as Kenya. No one is feeling the pinch as much as Kenya. An influx of refugees and insecurity, indeed, Kenya is bearing the burden of the failed state in its neighbourhood. But Kenya's inaction could be coming to an end. (1) Kenya is dealing with several major concurrent crises: a humanitarian crisis, a political crisis, and a national security crisis. These crises reflect aspects of a national dilemma as Kenya struggles to deal with a continuous influx of refugees, major domestic political turmoil, and overt threats to its national security stemming from the Somali armed faction, Al-Shabaab. Prior to the refugee crisis beginning in the 1990s, Kenya had a laissezfaire attitude towards refugee hosting because the size of the influx was much more manageable and refugees were not deemed a major threat to national security. (2) However, in the early 1990s Kenya's neighbours, mainly Sudan and Somalia, dissolved into conflict, causing hundreds of thousands of refugees to seek asylum in Kenya. The influx overwhelmed Kenya's capacity to manage the populations, and the government pushed for a policy of containing refugees in two camps, Dadaab and Kakuma. Dadaab is composed of three camps, Dagahale, Ifo and Hagadera. Dadaab is the name of the refugee site and collectively refers to all camps. At present, Dadaab is the world's largest refugee camp and is dangerously over capacity. (3) Kenya continues to host refugees, albeit reluctantly, as it wishes to remain in good standing with the international community. However, its commitment to East Africa's refugee crisis is being sidelined by its own domestic strife and threats to its national security stemming from Somalia. Kenya is still reeling from the aftermath of its election violence in 2008 and is on edge as the threat from Somalia was made all the more concrete when Al-Shabaab bombed Kampala, Uganda, in July 2010. (4) Consequently, Kenya's tolerance for the ongoing refugee problem which peaked in the 1990s due to major conflicts in the region is waning and concurrently issues of national security are growing.