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by Lamiat Sabin
THERESA MAY was slammed yesterday for pledging to use £100 million of Britain’s aid budget to send Somali refugees back and on methods to deter them from crossing the Mediterranean.
The PM used her first speech at the UN refugee summit to detail her proposals aimed at stopping “mass uncontrolled population movement.”
She was condemned earlier in the summit for saying that those fleeing their home countries should seek asylum in the first safe country reached, rather than risking their lives to reach Europe.
The vast majority of refugees already seek shelter in countries neighbouring their own.
Ms May said Britain would send soldiers to Somalia to train local troops to combat al-Shabab terrorists.
The government is also contributing £20m from the aid budget to supply food, schooling, shelter and jobs in the hope it will encourage Somalis to return home from the Dadaab camp in Kenya, to which 330,000 have fled.
Human Rights Watch said returning refugees to Somalia would not be voluntary because the camp is at risk of being shut down.
The UN has insisted there will be no forced returns.
Another £80m from the aid budget will be aimed at helping refugees, mainly Eritreans, remain in Ethiopia — Ms May said at a later summit on refugees hosted by the US.
She said it would be done by putting up money to build industrial parks providing about 100,000 jobs, a third of them for refugees.
Campaign group Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said Ms May’s policies were “xenophobic.”
He said: “It’s outrageous that Theresa May is using money which should be destined for some of the world’s poorest communities and using it to prop up populist policies.
“Theresa May also announced Britain will not turn its back to the world after Brexit, but taking our aid money and using it to further xenophobic policies is doing just that.
“There’s currently a very real threat of famine in Somalia, with an estimated five million people already going hungry.
“Making refugees return to a country with acute food shortages is a far cry from helping those most in need. Aid should be about helping countries to build decent public services.”
