Kenyan Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki announced Wednesday that Kenya is delaying plans to reopen its border with Somalia due to a wave of attacks linked to al Qaeda militants. Earlier in May, Kindiki announced plans to re-open Kenya’s Mandera border crossing with Somalia after a ten-year shutdown.

The announcement comes as the number of refugees entering Kenya from Somalia has soared. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that over 45,000 asylum seekers and refugees from Somalia arrived at Dadaab Refugee Camp, one of the largest refugee camps in Kenya, in 2022. Experts have attributed the mass migration to severe drought and looming famine. One Somali resident of Dadaab Refugee Camp stated, “You just plant crops but there is nothing to harvest. My cows died at the onset of the drought. I lost some goats as well.”

Kindiki addressed concerns over refugees’ ability to cross the border, saying:

As a policy shift on Refugee affairs, the Government will take charge in the management and administration of refugees database. This is part of the comprehensive population master plan in the country. 99.999% of refugees are good and law abiding and we will do our best to help them. However, there are few criminal elements who will not be allowed to hurt our National security and the interests of bona-fide refugees and host communities.

Kenya closed all its border crossings with Somalia in 2012 in an attempt to stop al-Shabab incursions operating from the Somali side. Despite these measures, the shutdowns have neither stopped people from smuggling goods nor crossing the border illegally. Within the last five years, Northeastern Kenya has continuously suffered attacks by al-Shabab. The deadliest one killed nearly 150 people at Garissa University College in 2015.

Kindiki continues to affirm that the government will further relations with the government of Somalia to develop joint strategies to curb security concerns.