GARISSA, Kenya, April 25 (Reuters)
- Kenyan police have demanded more than 400 locals stop pretending to be refugees to get food and aid handouts, a local official said on Wednesday.
The east African country hosts more than 180,000 refugees, most of them from neighbouring Somalia, in three large camps near the Somali border in its drought-prone northeast.
Some local residents resent the presence of the refugees, who are entitled to envied handouts from the United Nations, and hundreds recently entered the camps claiming to be foreigners.
"It is an embarrassment. The government will not accept it," one local official who asked not to be named told Reuters. "We know some are desperate and need food, while a majority want to secure a chance to be relocated to either America or Europe."
He said 408 Kenyans who had "cheated" and were discovered this week during a U.N. screening exercise were told to leave.