Every day about 1,500 people arrive at the Northern Kenya facility, writes CAELAINN HOGAN in Dadaab
HAVING WALKED for days without food or water, hundreds gather daily outside the reception centre in the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, waiting to be admitted.
“My young one will not stop crying from the hunger,” says Ayan, pressed against the chain link fence, cradling her six-month old baby.
She walked for 10 days with her six children from Hamara, Somalia. Now she waits alongside the many other women who huddle together in the unforgiving heat, trying to calm their children’s desperate cries.
“We used the bush to hide from bandits and wild animals, we had no rest,” she says. “We don’t know where we will spend the night or what will happen to us. We come here hoping for help.”
Every day about 1,500 people arrive at the Dadaab camp in Northern Kenya, the world’s largest refugee camp, forced from their homes due to the current drought crisis.
Flying into Dadaab the sheer scale of the camp is staggering. Thousands of tents and improvised shelters cover an area bigger than most cities in Ireland. Beyond the outskirts of the camp a barren landscape of sand and bush extends as far as the eye can see.
Set up 20 years ago to accommodate 90,000 refugees, 60,000 people have arrived at Dadaab in the last two months alone. Over 380,000 people now live here, with more arriving every day.
At the three reception centres, new arrivals are identified and their details recorded. Biometric fingerprinting has helped streamline this immense task so that people can quickly be moved on to health screening.
Children are vaccinated and those requiring medical attention are identified. Organisations such as Save the Children and Handicap International are on site to attend to specific needs.
New arrivals are provided with rations consisting of food staples, water, cooking utensils and soap, as well as sheeting and blankets for shelter. These must last them two to three weeks before they can be officially registered and receive their ration cards.
Many arrive with nothing, stripped of even the clothes they were wearing by bandits or militant groups. Fatima Abdi and her six children travelled for an entire month to reach Dadaab, fleeing insecurity in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
“On the way we met with al-Shabaab. There were searches and they took whatever belongings and money we had.”
For some the journey is an experience too painful to revisit. “I don’t want to recall what happened on the way,” says Mumina, a 20-year-old mother of two. “I had to leave my relatives behind. I am the only one of my people to reach here.”
“There has been a five-fold increase in reports of sexual assault,” says Sinéad Murray, manager of the International Rescue Committee’s gender-based violence programme which provides crucial counselling and support services from its clinic and in the field.
Women are particularly vulnerable both during the journey to Dadaab and within the camps. Many women who arrive have been victims of sexual assault or abduction.
“We’ve heard reports of women being attacked while in their tents at night,” says Ms Murray. “Many won’t come forward to report because of associated stigma.”
A source of hope is the remarkable solidarity shown by the community of refugees already settled here, some since 1992, which has mobilised to assist the new arrivals. Even with the strain on resources as a result of the huge influx of people, the community is sharing what little it has, donating essential items such as clothes, shoes and food which are distributed outside the reception centres.
Hassan Mohammad, secretary of the community youth division, says families already settled are now sheltering up to two to three families who have arrived in the new influx.
“We’ve seen several people here who are starving, they cannot wait, so the local community takes them in, gives them shelter and food.” The community leaders also help direct people to the centres and identify those in need of emergency care.
In Bullabakti on the outskirts of Dagahaley camp those who have finally been provided with tents help to shelter the growing number of new arrivals. “More people are coming day after day,” says Hawa, a mother of five. “Thirty people now live in this tent,” she says. “We share our food, our water, because they have nothing.”
She had to wait 70 days to be given a tent, up to then living in improvised shelters constructed from the nearby bush, covered with the plastic sheeting she was given on arrival. Some of the shelters are covered with no more than plastic bags or cardboard. The 10 or so families in the area share just one latrine.
Near to the tent lies a small improvised graveyard, where only last week Hawa buried her nine-month old daughter. “Many are dying,” she says, “some of the children here – their parents have died or are still in Somalia. We look after them now.”
With increasing numbers fleeing Somalia each day and insecurity in the country preventing safe access for aid organisations, the capacity of Dadaab could soon be pushed to its limit.
John O’Shea of Goal has appealed directly to Enda Kenny to call for immediate intervention of UN peacekeepers in Somalia, to enable humanitarian organisations to deliver aid to the country’s famine-stricken regions.
Organisations such as Goal are assisting the thousands fleeing across the border to Dadaab but this is “only a trickle”, says Mr O’Shea. “The UN knows that only the deployment of a peacekeeping unit in Somalia will avert appalling loss of life – but they choose not to act.”
Extensions to the camp agreed to by the government of Kenya have the potential to create urgently required space for another 180,000 people.
Pending official cabinet approval, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has decided to begin relocation into the undeveloped areas of the extension sites in Kambioos and Ifo extension two. Tents are being set up to provide transitional shelter.
“We will be targeting new arrivals as well as those who, since 2008, haven’t got a plot and are living in the congested areas with family members,” says Hanok Ochalla, manager of the refugee agency’s Ifo extension project.
If the current influx continues at such a rate however, the situation in Dadaab could quickly deteriorate. “This trend is not something we can foresee coming to an end very soon.” says Hanok Ochalla. “It may continue for another three to four weeks. If that is going to be the case, we’re going to be in trouble.”