UNHCR resumes registration of new Somali refugees fleeing to Kenya

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Thursday it has resumed registration of new Somali refugees seeking asylum in Kenya after a two-week suspension.

In a statement issued in Nairobi , the UNHCR said it has introduced tougher new security procedures aimed at curbing false claims from Kenyans of Somali origin.

Government officials said refugees waiting at a reception center in Liboi on the Kenya-Somalia border would now only be transferred to camps in Dadaab once their fingerprints had been checked against the country's records of registered persons -- a process that could take up to 10 days.

"We will start with the fingerprinting of the group already at the border. We are targeting all persons over 15 years of age," Charles Weru Githui, the Kenyan government official overseeing the new registration exercise, told a planning meeting in Dadaab.

"The idea here is to ensure that the few people misrepresenting themselves are not spoiling the chances of those who are genuinely in need," he added.

UNHCR said it registered 1,170 Somali asylum seekers on Monday when the registration was resumed.

Rivalry between the UN-backed government and the increasingly powerful Islamists who control much of central and southern Somalia, has heightened tensions in Somalia in recent months, forcing thousands to flee to Kenya in fear of a major confrontation.

About 34,000 Somali refugees have arrived in Kenya since the beginning of 2006, with a dramatic rise in the number of newcomers in the past two months.

Two weeks earlier, the government had ordered the suspension of a UNHCR-led exercise to register and transfer Somali refugees from Liboi to the Dadaab camps.

The move came because some Kenyan nationals were presenting themselves as refugees, while some Somalis who had already registered in the camps were posing as new arrivals in a bid to get more assistance.

Source: Xinhua