This is a story sent to me by a reader from the UK yesterday. I’m reading between the lines of course, but I see this as lobbying pressure for the US to take thousands more Somalis. From UN News Centre:
3 May 2010 – Thousands of Somalis fleeing the violence in their homeland are expected to cross into neighbouring countries this year where they will add to already overcrowded and under-resourced conditions in camps, the deputy United Nations chief for refugees said today.
“The burden for these countries is enormous,” said Alexander Aleinikoff, Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, following a two-week visit to camps in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).
“If there was one resounding call from the refugees we met with it was this: please find me a new home,” Mr. Aleinikoff added.
[….]
The agency has helped resettle thousands of refugees in new countries, mostly in the United States – but acknowledged that the numbers represent “a tiny fraction of those stuck in limbo.”
For new readers, more Somalis are already on the way:
The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then in 2008 had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing. That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon.
Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled by the State Department as I write this. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.