Refugees and The Environment
Recently we saw the Kenyan govenrment take a bold step and announce it was planning to close the Daadab refugee camp and relocate the refugees back to their country. This move has both been hailed and condemned in equal measures. Personally, i won't enter into that debate but i would rather address a different side of the whole issue of the existence of refugees in our country especially in the camps. It is worth noting that when there is a high concentration of refugees occurring rapidly a number of environmental problems are experienced. In the absence of mitigating measures, physical deterioration of the surrounding environment soon takes place thus generating a number of impacts on both the refugees and the local population. Some of the environmental problems associated with refugees include: Natural resource deterioration. Degradation of renewable resources such as forests, soils, water etc dominates the environmental problems associated with refugees for example contami