KAKUMA (Kenya), June 19 (NNN-XINHUA) — Kenya has hosted an estimated 775,000 refugees and asylum seekers from over 20 countries, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Nanduri Sateesh, head of Sub Office at Kakuma at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-Kenya, told Xinhua that 100,000 refugees are currently residing in urban areas.
“About 90 percent of the refugees are from Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Burundi,” Sateesh said at the Kakuma refugee camp in northeast Kenya on Tuesday.
Dadaab refugee camps in northeast Kenya host 375,000 refugees, while the Kakuma refugee camp has about 288,000.
Sateesh said that about five years ago, the number of refugees was 500,000, but the figure has been increasing due to instability in the Eastern Africa region.
The UNHCR official added that refugees have also been streaming into Kenya to escape the effects of climate change, such as droughts. — NNN-XINHUA
