Cord leader Raila Odinga has called on the government to reconsider its stand to repatriate refugees from the Dadaab camp.
He said that the Kenyan government should first guarantee the refugees of their safety before sending them back home.
“If soldiers are being killed in Somalia, what of these civilians from Dadaab. You are sending them to their deaths,” Raila said.
The former Prime Minister was speaking in Garissa on Saturday during a rally.
He said the government should put on hold the repatriation process and set up homes in Somalia for the refugees before sending them home.
“These are people who ran away from their country because of war, and you want to send them back?” Raila paused.
Dadaab camp is the world’s largest refugee camp by population, being home to more than 300,000 refugees, mostly from Somala.
Most of the refugees escaped a civil war that broke out in 1991 after President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in a coupe.
The government has however maintained that the refugees have overstayed and must return home.
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On the IEBC issue, Raila maintained that the commission is biased and cannot be allowed to overseer next year’s elections.
He dismissed claims that he was targeting the commission because it was being led by a Somali Muslim.
“If it is that I took Junet Mohammed, a Somali, to become an MP in Migori, how then am I biased towards a Muslim from Garissa. That is baseless propaganda,” Raila said.
He said that the fact that he participated in appointing Isaac Hassan as the IEBC Chairman does not mean that he cannot criticize him when he is wrong.
Cord has maintained that after the government rejected a proposal for dialogue over the IEBC stalemate, anti-IEBC protests will be back on Monday until the commissioners leave office.
Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet has however ruled the planned demonstrations as illegal on the basis of a court order.
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Cord has however insisted that the order by Judge Isaac Lenaola only warned them from storming IEBC offices, looting property and being disorderly.
During the Garissa rally, Raila also fronted Farah Maalim as the man Cord will be banking on to unseat majority leader Aden Duale in next year’s general elections.