With more than 2500 years of invasion by many empires, races and countries- Somalia is a country now suffering from unbelievable uncertainty. Recent civil war in the country has divided the country into 3 parts and gave a chance to grow violence among different clans and groups. With these uncertainties and civil war situation, since early 90s, it has not seen a bit of development, any hope compared to the potential they had! Looking at the situation, it wont be wrong to say that it has became a failed state.
People of Somalia, who tried to have a better life- always wanted to move abroad. Since early 90s, many Somalians went around different countries for a better hope. Kenya was one of the neighbouring countries where access was comparatively easy.
Dadaab is small place at the Northern Province of Kenya. It has a non-fertile topography with desert like sand and weeds. The temperature is high with humid condition. People of Dadaab is mainly pastoralists. In spite of hard conditions of this place, it was close to Somalian border and at least a place without violence. Probably, that was enough for Somalis to dream about a new life!
It has been more than 2 decades that Somalis have been coming as refugees. About for last 16 years UNHCR has been providing enough rationale to support them to live in Dadaab. On other way, UNHCR has developed refugee camp for these people and started pulling resources to make them survive temporarily. To help in implementation, many international NGOs have been taking challenges to work in this remote place and support the camp. These temporary support for refugee has already crossed 16 years when with many other refugee and others I wonder- how long is this 'temporary' business will go on?
I had a rare chance to visit this camp area, Dadaab this month. Before coming to Kenya- I have never heard of this place. By looking at some web pictures and articles, I could not resist when my boss told me to have a visit. I jumped into the idea of getting first experience of riding a UN flight, and then to visit one of the remotest places in the world. I also could not resist the chance of showing off about this trip in my facebook status. Silly me! Didn't know how disturbed I will be even to see a bit of it!
The journey began well, with a beechcraft 1900C STAL aircraft from Nairobi, we flew quickly above 13000 feet from the ground. After 10 minutes or so, pilot announced,'Ladies & Gentlemen, if you look at your right- you will see Mount Kilimanjaro and on the left Mount Kenya" - two highest peaks of this region was standing high over the beautiful African clouds from two different countries- with pride. I regret now why I haven't took a snap from the plane of Kilimanjaro! What was I thinking? Probably my internal processor took a while to record it in my bio-memory called brain! Amazing and a pleasant surprise as I didn't know about it. After an hour when the old speakers of beechcraft made some noise, I captured that we were landing in 5 minutes, thus looked at the ground. Sandy land....no sign of civilization...few 'tukuls' (hut)....straight sandy lines (roads) and a small piece of pitched road. Later I have realized, it was a air strip- only pitched cover made for the air crafts to land.
It came on my face first- a heat wave mixed with sand, welcoming me with the essence of toughness of the place. It was good to see an old face from my organization came to receive me. While approaching to the compound where my office is, I observed one cell phone company made a good progress in bringing cell phone into Dadaab. After all, thousand of aid and NGO workers are working here. A very poor scene of the village market (!) was reminding me of the Haors and Chars of Bangladesh. The face of poverty is probably the same everywhere!
With a small breakfast we have also received security briefings. The main risks are: Scorpion and Snake. So we were told to be cautious. Since one foreigner got shot in December, so gun shots were also a possible risk. Dehydration is another silent risk-so drinking was advisable. Cars moves to the main refugee camps only according to a routine time-table as police gives escorts accordingly. Without police, no NGO cars can move as there are bandits anywhere. That was a good piece of information for me to be more 'courageous'! So, without any delay, I wanted to go for a field visit- but it turned out I can only be till another sub office of CARE but not to the locality where refugees stay. And it is also sensitive for an xpat like me to interact with them (according to authority!). With a slightly disappointment, I got into a 4x4 to catch the 2'O clock convoy. with colleague. Goal was to at least see the ongoing food distribution in a sub camp. At least I had a chance to see some of them!
From a distance, I could see the queue of refugees. We entered through a warehouse and food distribution point where some of the last groups were taking the packages. Everyone was busy dragging the sacs toward the exit point. Refugees get food aids twice a month and the aid meets the minimum standards of humanitarian aid. Interestingly, USAID's food items gave them a good chance to trade to but other commodities to make their life interesting- who cares about kilo-calories when you get more than corn-soya-blend and wheat flour! When I approached towards the exit point, I was surprised to see some private cars to carry the aid. When I asked one of the staffs, he replied- "not all of them are poor, many of them brought much money to live good, then have invested into many businesses within refugee camp...and there are many divisions among refugee". So I was silently thinking and watching the smiles, trade, donkey carts, dragging and private cars....all around aid- all around aid dependency.
I took a chance to ask more to the staff about the camps. Started initially with the question of how long he has been working in Dadaab. Then I asked in his 14 years of work here, what progress he has experienced around refugee situation. The answer was- 'nothing, they became more aid dependant and the doesn't work'. I also got to know, in last one year 43% more refugees joined since January 2007 till January 2008. In total 245,000 refugees are in the camp, whereas the locals sum up around 160,000. There is a clear tension between the host (locals) and refugee. Irony is, with the aid attention focused only on the refugees, they are far better of the locals just being aid dependant. When I asked what is next for these refugees? If there is any solution for them than considering this to be temporary camp?...they reply was,"It is a tough question for me, better ask UN".
While bumping on the barren land that we were using as main road, some Marabou Storks came across-sipping from a small area of stagnant water. It rained 2 days ago-but dried quickly too. With this very known climate of Dadaab, our driver was very familiar, as he was born and brought up here-as he is one of the hosts. He said,"There are both good and bad about refugees. First of all they were deprived from their land and came here for hope. Because of them, Dadaab is know to the whole world-so at least some development are coming to this place. But on the other hand, they are destroying our environment- groundwater and trees (shrubs)".
We went to visit some more development works done by NGOs. A good secondary school with science labs, a computer center soon to be connected with internet. Thanks to those NGOs and UN who brought some technologies and development to this remotest places. However, the question remains, who will look after the locals? The mechanism of NGOs seemed to me vision less. It has been like ad-hoc process of bringing money and doing something for the refugee that looks good on the report, websites and journals. Ideally, the tension is mounting up silently. After 16 years of camp establishment where there is at least 2 generations are existing within camp, how easy it will be to convince them that it might be a temporary address for them? How can the new born at the camp think of it isn't his address? How can they think of the situation if UN stops feeding them? It seems there is a lack of political will/ foresightedness. Almighty forbid, we may have to see the tension between host and the refugee soon becoming an issue of claiming the ownership! Who will be responsible?
People of Somalia, who tried to have a better life- always wanted to move abroad. Since early 90s, many Somalians went around different countries for a better hope. Kenya was one of the neighbouring countries where access was comparatively easy.
Dadaab is small place at the Northern Province of Kenya. It has a non-fertile topography with desert like sand and weeds. The temperature is high with humid condition. People of Dadaab is mainly pastoralists. In spite of hard conditions of this place, it was close to Somalian border and at least a place without violence. Probably, that was enough for Somalis to dream about a new life!
It has been more than 2 decades that Somalis have been coming as refugees. About for last 16 years UNHCR has been providing enough rationale to support them to live in Dadaab. On other way, UNHCR has developed refugee camp for these people and started pulling resources to make them survive temporarily. To help in implementation, many international NGOs have been taking challenges to work in this remote place and support the camp. These temporary support for refugee has already crossed 16 years when with many other refugee and others I wonder- how long is this 'temporary' business will go on?
I had a rare chance to visit this camp area, Dadaab this month. Before coming to Kenya- I have never heard of this place. By looking at some web pictures and articles, I could not resist when my boss told me to have a visit. I jumped into the idea of getting first experience of riding a UN flight, and then to visit one of the remotest places in the world. I also could not resist the chance of showing off about this trip in my facebook status. Silly me! Didn't know how disturbed I will be even to see a bit of it!
The journey began well, with a beechcraft 1900C STAL aircraft from Nairobi, we flew quickly above 13000 feet from the ground. After 10 minutes or so, pilot announced,'Ladies & Gentlemen, if you look at your right- you will see Mount Kilimanjaro and on the left Mount Kenya" - two highest peaks of this region was standing high over the beautiful African clouds from two different countries- with pride. I regret now why I haven't took a snap from the plane of Kilimanjaro! What was I thinking? Probably my internal processor took a while to record it in my bio-memory called brain! Amazing and a pleasant surprise as I didn't know about it. After an hour when the old speakers of beechcraft made some noise, I captured that we were landing in 5 minutes, thus looked at the ground. Sandy land....no sign of civilization...few 'tukuls' (hut)....straight sandy lines (roads) and a small piece of pitched road. Later I have realized, it was a air strip- only pitched cover made for the air crafts to land.
It came on my face first- a heat wave mixed with sand, welcoming me with the essence of toughness of the place. It was good to see an old face from my organization came to receive me. While approaching to the compound where my office is, I observed one cell phone company made a good progress in bringing cell phone into Dadaab. After all, thousand of aid and NGO workers are working here. A very poor scene of the village market (!) was reminding me of the Haors and Chars of Bangladesh. The face of poverty is probably the same everywhere!
With a small breakfast we have also received security briefings. The main risks are: Scorpion and Snake. So we were told to be cautious. Since one foreigner got shot in December, so gun shots were also a possible risk. Dehydration is another silent risk-so drinking was advisable. Cars moves to the main refugee camps only according to a routine time-table as police gives escorts accordingly. Without police, no NGO cars can move as there are bandits anywhere. That was a good piece of information for me to be more 'courageous'! So, without any delay, I wanted to go for a field visit- but it turned out I can only be till another sub office of CARE but not to the locality where refugees stay. And it is also sensitive for an xpat like me to interact with them (according to authority!). With a slightly disappointment, I got into a 4x4 to catch the 2'O clock convoy. with colleague. Goal was to at least see the ongoing food distribution in a sub camp. At least I had a chance to see some of them!
From a distance, I could see the queue of refugees. We entered through a warehouse and food distribution point where some of the last groups were taking the packages. Everyone was busy dragging the sacs toward the exit point. Refugees get food aids twice a month and the aid meets the minimum standards of humanitarian aid. Interestingly, USAID's food items gave them a good chance to trade to but other commodities to make their life interesting- who cares about kilo-calories when you get more than corn-soya-blend and wheat flour! When I approached towards the exit point, I was surprised to see some private cars to carry the aid. When I asked one of the staffs, he replied- "not all of them are poor, many of them brought much money to live good, then have invested into many businesses within refugee camp...and there are many divisions among refugee". So I was silently thinking and watching the smiles, trade, donkey carts, dragging and private cars....all around aid- all around aid dependency.
I took a chance to ask more to the staff about the camps. Started initially with the question of how long he has been working in Dadaab. Then I asked in his 14 years of work here, what progress he has experienced around refugee situation. The answer was- 'nothing, they became more aid dependant and the doesn't work'. I also got to know, in last one year 43% more refugees joined since January 2007 till January 2008. In total 245,000 refugees are in the camp, whereas the locals sum up around 160,000. There is a clear tension between the host (locals) and refugee. Irony is, with the aid attention focused only on the refugees, they are far better of the locals just being aid dependant. When I asked what is next for these refugees? If there is any solution for them than considering this to be temporary camp?...they reply was,"It is a tough question for me, better ask UN".
While bumping on the barren land that we were using as main road, some Marabou Storks came across-sipping from a small area of stagnant water. It rained 2 days ago-but dried quickly too. With this very known climate of Dadaab, our driver was very familiar, as he was born and brought up here-as he is one of the hosts. He said,"There are both good and bad about refugees. First of all they were deprived from their land and came here for hope. Because of them, Dadaab is know to the whole world-so at least some development are coming to this place. But on the other hand, they are destroying our environment- groundwater and trees (shrubs)".
We went to visit some more development works done by NGOs. A good secondary school with science labs, a computer center soon to be connected with internet. Thanks to those NGOs and UN who brought some technologies and development to this remotest places. However, the question remains, who will look after the locals? The mechanism of NGOs seemed to me vision less. It has been like ad-hoc process of bringing money and doing something for the refugee that looks good on the report, websites and journals. Ideally, the tension is mounting up silently. After 16 years of camp establishment where there is at least 2 generations are existing within camp, how easy it will be to convince them that it might be a temporary address for them? How can the new born at the camp think of it isn't his address? How can they think of the situation if UN stops feeding them? It seems there is a lack of political will/ foresightedness. Almighty forbid, we may have to see the tension between host and the refugee soon becoming an issue of claiming the ownership! Who will be responsible?
Note: the situation may not be as clear as I tried to explain. There are complexity in many ways in Dadaab. However, in a short trip-I felt of having a political will from the countries (Kenya and refugees' countries) and NGOs should do lobby and advocacy rather just distributing aid or doing some so called capacity building and long term development plans! By the way, the refugee camp aslo had influx from Ethiopia, DRC, Burundi, Tanzania and some neighbouring countries as well.
