The Kenyan government has relocated 2,760 refugees and asylum seekers to the refugee camps in northern Kenya, while another 360 people including five refugees were deported to Mogadishu, the UN said on Tuesday.

The latest report from the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Eastern Africa says the relocation or deportation of refugees and asylum seekers followed the security operation which was launched by the police on April 2 after the grenade attacks in Nairobi and Mombasa.

“As of June 11, 2,757 refugees and asylum seekers had been relocated to the refugee camps with the majority (2,200 people) transferred to Dadaab refugee camp,” OCHA said in the report, citing statistics from the UNHCR.

The security swoop, dubbed Operation Usalama Watch, involved door-to-door searches by security personnel with the objective of combing out undocumented immigrants and persons living in Kenya illegally.

The security operation coincided with a government directive, issued on March 26, requiring all refugees and asylum-seekers to report to the designated refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma.

The East African nation is home to an estimated 50,000 urban refugees. The government and UNHCR have over the years facilitated the residence in urban areas of refugees with special protection needs including security, education, medical cases and those being processed for resettlement to third countries.

“Negotiations for additional land are ongoing. In the meantime, UNHCR has discouraged the government through the Department of Refugee Affairs, to cease further relocations to Kakuma pending allocation of more space,” OCHA said.

Most of the affected refugees have lived in urban centers for many years where they have established jobs or businesses.

According to OCHA, access to the detained people remains sporadic and on an ad hoc basis for different stages of the process.

The security operation followed the grenade and gun attacks in Mombasa and Nairobi by unknown perpetrators on March 23 and March 31 that killed 12 and injured at least eight.