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Kenya Orders All Refugees Back To Camps After Church Attack

Kenya Orders All Refugees Back To Camps After Church Attack

The Kenyan government on Tuesday ordered all refugees in the country to go back to their designated camps in the wake of a weekend attack on a church in the coastal town of Likoni near Mombasa that killed six people and left scores injured. Al-Jazeera said Kenyans were asked to report any refugees or illegal immigrants outside the overcrowded camps — Dadaab in the east and Kakuma in the northwest — to the police.

The directive in reaction to a Sunday’s attack in a Likoni church by suspected Al-shabab militants. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Kenya has been hit by a series of attacks since sending troops into southern Somalia in October 2011 to battle the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents.

“All refugees residing outside the designated refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaad are hereby directed to return to their respective camps,” Kenya’s interior security cabinet secretary Joseph Ole Lenku said in a statement.

“Any refugee found flouting this directive will be dealt with in accordance with the law.”