On Her 19th Birthday, Malala Visits World’s Largest Refugee Camp

Malala said that on each birthday she chooses a region where girls’ education is neglected and needs attention.

Malala Yousafzai (Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai celebrated her 19th birthday by visiting the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab in Kenya. She also expressed concern that Kenya’s plans to close the refugee camp within a year could create ‘a generation lost.’ The Kenyan government had announced its plans to close the camp in May this year.

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Malala, a staunch advocate for girls’ education said any attempts to send back more than 300,000 refugees in the camp to neighbouring Somalia should be voluntary. Somalia remains in the grip of extremist attacks.

The refugees should not be forced to move. As we all know the camp is going to be closed down soon, so I want to make sure that these girls don’t become a generation lost and there are alternative facilities for them to continue with their education. In Dadaab camp, they have schools and they are getting their education

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Laureate

Malala urged Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to take into consideration the need to provide education to the girls. Kenyatta has said repatriations from Dadaab, which has existed for a quarter-century, will be voluntary and done in a humane way.

Furthermore, the international community has urged caution to Kenya and warned against forceful evictions. Many of Dadaab’s refugees have lived most if not all their lives in the sprawling camp, which is a vast settlement of established homes and newcomers’ improvised huts of thorn branches and other materials.

Malala won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize after militants shot her in 2012 while she was returning home from school in Pakistan, where she was an outspoken advocate for girls’ education in a highly conservative culture.