FATIMA ADEN Bule and her family have been waiting 10 long months for this day. Since they were forced to abandon their home in Somalia, they have lived in Dadaab refugee camp in increasingly difficult conditions, with no permanent shelter.
“We came here to get support, particularly shelter and food,” she said. “We’ve finally got relief.”
Originally constructed 20 years ago to accommodate 90,000, the camp has seen over 60,000 people arrive in the last two months, bringing the population to a staggering total of 380,000-plus. Many families in situ have sheltered the new arrivals, but the congestion has led to increasingly deteriorating conditions.
Waiting in line to be registered and directed to her new home, nine-year-old Madiino balances an empty water barrel on her head, surrounded by her family and their few belongings. The few hours’ walk to the new camp was one of hope compared to the 15 days they journeyed in desperation to cross the border to Dadaab.
For some of the more vulnerable, however, even this small trip is a huge effort. Beside a donkey laden with what remains from the shelters they have left, one family rests beside the queue that has formed, an older woman stretched out on the ground in exhaustion
“What I am hoping now is to get a tent, to be given shelter,” said Mandeeq, a young woman eager to have a more secure environment for her two-month-old daughter. “We were living on the outskirts, the situation was very hard. My name is on the list – I am happy now.” There are 1,510 names listed on the registration sheet for the new camp, and these are only the heads of families, which average five people each.
The small crowd outside the makeshift registration office waited restlessly, most having waited many months on the outskirts in improvised shelters.
The new site is one of three extensions allocated to address the overspill of refugees forced to set up shelters outside the main infrastructure of the camps.
Most live in improvised shelters using plastic sheeting, sometimes only cardboard. Those who manage to obtain tents often accommodate up to 30 people in a space intended for a family of four.
Tension within the host community and political opposition has so far impeded the relocation of people to these sites, which have the capacity to accommodate 180,000 people.
In the wake of prime minister of Kenya Raila Odinga’s visit to Dadaab on July 14th, where he stated the Ifo extension should be opened, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decided to act.
“Now the crisis has gone beyond reasonable figures that could be contained with the situation we’re trying to manage,” says Hanok Ochalla, manager of the high commissioner’s Ifo extension.
As a compromise, on Monday, the high commissioner began relocating people into temporary tents in the undeveloped site of the second Ifo extension.
Across a short stretch of arid land stand the water towers of the first Ifo extension, which has a fully developed infrastructure of water, sanitation and health. It so far remains empty, awaiting official permission from the Kenyan government to open.
Water must be trucked in from the developed extension to the undeveloped one, where the high commissioner has been forced to relocate families to alleviate congestion. Within metres of the new extension, unregistered new arrivals have set up shelters, evidence of the increasing spillover from the original Ifo camp. With the influx of people fleeing famine in Somalia and the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa, the urgent need for shelter continues.
As Fatima and her family settle in to their new home and many others wait hopefully in line, another Fatima stood watching the tents. “I live in the outskirts with three children, with no shelter,” she said.
The six-month-old child she clasps to her breast has legs swollen from malnutrition. “Not yet,” she said with quiet forbearance. “I will not get a tent today.”