Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the humanitarian effect of the closure of the Dadaab camp on Somali refugees in that region.

The UK supports voluntary return of refugees in line with international refugee law. The UK supports the extension of the Tripartite Agreement between the Governments of Kenya and Somalia, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), as the legal basis regulating the returns process to Somalia. The UNHCR leads on refugee returns and we support their assessments of the process.

The UK welcomes the monitoring role civil society plays and works in dialogue with them. We are working across partners and government to monitor the regional impacts, including from movement of people, impacts on other refugee host countries and on regional security.