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{
    "id": 395059,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/395059/?format=api",
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    "content": "refugees? What process are we going to go through to actually sieve and remove those to say that “these are the ones that are validly there?” Because if we are even talking about issues of compensation, we need to be able to identify that group appropriately and separate them. If we are talking about compensation, then what amount of compensation is appropriate? For what reason should that compensation be given, in the first place? So, let us not be emotional, but let us look at the merit of an issue and call a spade a spade. We have just come from a devastating attack. I am not saying that it is the Somalis who have caused it, but we do not know who caused it. However, let us look at the broader issue of security and the implication on security of giving identity cards to non-Kenyans. We really do not have the mandate, authority or the proof to know whether these are Kenyan refugees or not. So, as we move on with this discussion, we should actually be more streamlined and say what process we will follow in identifying these people. The whole area of north eastern has really been ravaged by drought. From the 1970s to about 2007, there have been about eight droughts. So, it is understandable to know that a community has had to survive. They moved into the refugee camps so that they could actually make ends meet. But just on the basis of that alone, I think it will be very wrong to say “let us give identity cards to all of them” without carrying out some very serious vetting process. Here, we should be talking about proposals of vetting these people. How do we go about that vetting? How will we make sure that the process of vetting is followed? How are we going to make sure that those who will be given identity cards are really Kenyans or merit, in the first place, to be Kenyans? It is understandable in the debate which has been put here that there is a group of people who have suffered. Yes, for those who have undergone drought, there have been issues of migration from one place to another, loss of livestock and food security. These are reasons that propelled most of these Kenyan Somalis to give up their identity. It becomes very difficult even for us to know who the Kenyan Somalis are and who the Somali Somalis are. That differentiation becomes very difficult for us to prove in order to move forward. In their report of 2003, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said that there are about 300,000 refugees in their camps and who were not supposed to be in those camps, in the first place. So, we are talking about a large proportion or nearly half a million people who are in camps. How did they get to be in camps where they should not have been, in the first place? That causes an issue of identity. We need to talk about issues of identity and the process of going back to identify who is who. We are not chastising anybody here and saying---"
}