Nobel laureate spends birthday at Kenyan refugee camp

By Magdalene Mukami

DADAAB , Kenya (AA) – The world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai, on Tuesday arrived at the Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya to spend her 19th birthday with over 340,000 people being sheltered at the site.

The camp, which is a temporary home to over 300,000 Somali refugees, is set to close later this year and all residents to be repatriated back to their country due to security concerns raised by the Kenyan government.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Yousafzai has been in contact with a group of young girls from the Dadaab camp via Skype.

On landing in Dadaab, which is near the porous Kenya-Somali border, Malala was greeted by tens of young girls who welcomed her to the site which was opened in 1990 after civil war broke out in Somalia.

Most of the girls are said to have been born in Kenya with the East African country being the only home that they have ever known.

From Pakistan, Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for promoting female education. She was later awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in championing education for young women and girls across the world.