Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has given the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) a 14-day ultimatum to shut down Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.

Dr Matiang’i told UNHCR that there was no room for further negotiations by the Kenya government on the closure of the largest refugee camps in the region.

The order by the no-nonsense Interior CS comes as Kenya makes a second attempt to have the refugee camps shut and the refugees therein repatriated to their respective countries.

In May 2016, Kenya announced that it was planning to close down Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, located in Garissa County, saying it was infiltrated by terror cells.

The declaration by Kenya government came even as human rights groups accused the country of harassing Somali refugees to go back home yet it was supposedly not safe yet.

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Kenya then was hosting close to 600,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, with Dadaab alone hosting 350,000, coming as various terror plots have been traced to some camp inhabitants.