Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A statement from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Kenya office said Guterres began his mission with a visit to Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya which is currently hosting more than 190,000 mainly Somali refugees.
"While in Dadaab, the High Commissioner is scheduled to meet with refugees who have fled to Kenya recently and talk with other long-staying Somali refugees about their long exile," the statement said.
Guterres is on Thursday expected to travel briefly to Naivasha, about 90 kilometers northwest of Nairobi to meet with internally displaced Kenyans and returnees following the country's post election crisis.
The UN refugee chief is expected to participate in activities to mark World Refugee Day in Nairobi on Friday. He is also expected to meet top government officials in the course of his visit to Kenya.
Guterres, a former premier of Portugal, was elected UN High Commissioner for Refugees by the UN General Assembly to a five-year term that began in 2005.
Guterres' visit came after the launch of the report which said the UN refugee agency provided assistance to 25.1 million people in 2007, an all-time high.
The UNHCR's latest annual global snapshot said the number of refugees under agency's responsibility rose from 9.9 to 11.4 million by the end of 2007.
UNHCR also currently provides protection or assistance directly or indirectly to 13.7 internally displaced persons (IDPs), up from12.8 million in 2006.
"After a five-year decline in the number of refugees between 2001 and 2005, we have now seen two years of increases, and that's a concern," Guterres said on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua, June 18, 2008