The United Nations refugee agency urged Kenya on Tuesday to reconsider an order to close the teeming Dadaab refugee camp, saying it would not be part of any transfer of Somalis back to their homeland that violated international law.
Kenya has given the United Nations three months to remove a camp housing more than half a million Somali refugees, as part of a get-tough response to the killing of 148 people by Somali gunmen at a Kenyan university.
Two merchant ships and an Italian coast guard vessel went to the rescue of more than 600 migrants who sent emergency calls for help from their packed rubber boats near the Libyan coast on Saturday.
An estimated 300 people probably died this week after attempting to reach Italy from Libya in stormy weather, the U.N. refugee agency said on Wednesday after speaking to a handful of survivors.
