Kenyans and refugees from all walks of life converged in the capital of Nairobi Thursday marked the second World Refugee Day, which falls on June 20 every year.
High-ranking Kenyan officials and the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), George Okoth-Obbo, attended the gathering in Nairobi where the events were also marked by exhibition of art produced by a number of refugee artists and performance by refugees as well as Kenyan artists.
Speaking at the occasion, Okoth-Obbo, UNHCR country representative in Nairobi, said the UN agency has decided to dedicate the World Refugee Day to women refugees because of the fact that women and girls make up about 50 percent of the World's refugee population and they are clearly most vulnerable.
At the same time, it is women who carry out the crucial tasks in refugee camps and are responsible for over 71 percent of the income-generation activities in the camps, he lamented.
Okoth-Obbo assured the refugees and Kenya government that his agency would not let up in efforts to help address the challenges refugees face in exile and of the host nation in providing the asylum.
During the same occasion, Kenyan Vice President George Saitoti said in a speech read on his behalf by his assistant minister Edwin Osundwa that Kenya currently hosts at least 231,049 documented refugees resident in the two designated camps in Dadaaband Kakuma, northern Kenya.
He called upon the international community to continue supporting the country's refugee programs, which he said has in the last decade become a big burden on the Kenyan economy.
But he noted that the Kenyan government, in collaboration with the UNHCR, has continued to provide safe asylum for refugees, mostof whom are from the neighboring Somalia and the Sudan, by guaranteeing their legal protection, physical security and humanitarian assistance.
Also on Thursday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned that hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps in northern Kenya are facing a severe food shortage crisis.
Stressing that it lacked the funds to supply food aid to over 230,000 refugees currently living in the two main refugee camps, the UN agency appealed to the international community to "come forward" with contributions in order to avert a further deterioration of the situation.
"In effect we have reduced the food ration in Kakuma and Dadaabcamps since February to the current figures of 1,600 and 1,900 kcal per person per day, respectively, which is below the recommended daily level of 2,100 kcal per day," WFP said in a statement entitled "Refugees in Kenya celebrate World Refugee Day without enough to eat".
(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2002)
