Refugees Face Hostility in US Cities
NAIROBI, 10 FEB 2003--THE UNITED States reaffirmed last week that it will admit some 12,000 Somali Bantus who have been living in Kenya as refugees for the past decade. But the prospective immigrants, who are to begin arriving in the US within a few weeks, might encounter some hostility in their new home.

Racial and cultural tensions have developed in one US locality where large numbers of Somali immigrants have already settled. And leaders of a city in Massachusetts have voted to reject a US government grant intended to smooth the planned placement of Somali families in that community.