Kenya served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan's north-south separation in February 2005; as of March 2019, Kenya provides shelter to nearly 475,000 refugees and asylum seekers, including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord's Resistance Army rebels; Kenya works hard to prevent the clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading across the border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists; the boundary that separates Kenya's and Sudan's sovereignty is unclear in the "Ilemi Triangle," which Kenya has administered since colonial times; in 2018, Kenya signed an MoU with Uganda and South Sudan to help demarcate their borders
Uganda is subject to armed fighting among hostile ethnic groups, rebels, armed gangs, militias, and various government forces that extend across its borders; Ugandan refugees as well as members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) seek shelter in southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Garamba National Park; LRA forces have also attacked Kenyan villages across the border
Refugees and internally displaced persons
refugees (country of origin): 269,870 (Somalia), 133,320 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 30,081 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 20,560 (Ethiopia), 7,081 (Burundi) (2021)
IDPs: 190,000 (election-related violence, intercommunal violence, resource conflicts, al-Shabaab attacks in 2017 and 2018) (2020)
stateless persons: 16,820 (2020); note - the stateless population consists of Nubians, Kenyan Somalis, and coastal Arabs; the Nubians are descendants of Sudanese soldiers recruited by the British to fight for them in East Africa more than a century ago; Nubians did not receive Kenyan citizenship when the country became independent in 1963; only recently have Nubians become a formally recognized tribe and had less trouble obtaining national IDs; Galjeel and other Somalis who have lived in Kenya for decades are included with more recent Somali refugees and denied ID cards
refugees (country of origin): 924,835 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 432,390 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 51,039 (Burundi), 47,581 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 17,750 (Rwanda), 17,658 (Eritrea) (2021)
