News Stories, 12 September 2009
Dadaab Refugee Camps, Kenya, September 12 (UNHCR) – UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie visited Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee settlement on the Kenyan – Somali border. Describing it as ‘one of the most dire’ camps she had visited, Jolie asked, “if this is the better solution, what must it be like in Somalia?’
Around 285,000 people live in a space designed for 90,000. Led by UNHCR Field Officer Maeve Murphy, Jolie heard about the struggle the humanitarian agency is facing to contain an impending humanitarian catastrophe.
On her way to visit the new arrivals area, children ran to greet Jolie. A little boy taught her the Somali handshake and soon the children were all giggling and offering hands for her to grasp.
Jolie reached the new arrivals site where she met a young woman with her three small children, two of them still babies. Their distended stomachs and streaming noses were clear signs of their recent misery. Sitting down under the tree, Murphy showed Jolie the different signs of malnutrition, noting that the family would go to the nearest hospital for care later in the day.
“We walked for days to escape the fighting,” the woman told Jolie. Relatives came to join the party providing obvious relief to the young woman. One spoke English and told her, ‘we need space’, noting that the arrival of the young woman was stretching an already overcrowded home. The crowd answered together when she asked whether the situation has deteriorated in Somalia since they arrived, ‘much worse’ translated the man. “I hear that the situation in Somalia is only expected to worsen in the coming months”, added Jolie.
On the drive to the next family, Jolie looked out of the window to heaps of strewn rubbish, “There is not even enough space for a trash dump, so people live amongst garbage”, she said. The car passed numerous water points with water cans lined up in rows, waiting for water to arrive. Murphy explained that the huge numbers of people in the camp meant that water could only be given every two days.
As she walked to meet another family she noticed a child pulling a water container along by a string. “We have stopped giving water containers that roll because we are so worried about contamination entering the water, spreading diseases like cholera” explained Murphy. Earlier this year a cholera outbreak was contained thanks to huge teams of humanitarian workers. “With up to 7,000 people arriving each month, rain on the horizon, they say it will be impossible to contain the next outbreak,” warned Jolie, who had prepared intensively for her mission.
Jolie chatted with UNHCR staff as they walked through the windswept, baking camp to meet the next family. Every home they passed was full of people, “there is no space left to offer, so we rely on the refugees to look after the new arrivals,” explained Murphy.
She stopped at a home cobbled together with tree branches and plastic sheeting packed with three families. Under the shade of a tree one of the families sat waiting for her. Zahra, the mother, had arrived in the camp the month before, loaded into a wheelbarrow with her youngest, pushed by her exhausted husband. “Luckily we found our old neighbour Anab from Mogadishu,” she said, nodding to a smiling woman waiting in the doorway of a small room. “We don’t have a roof though, just a place to stay,” she noted, after describing her health problems.
Moving over to Anab, Jolie was invited into the small room, shafts of sunlight filtering through the dilapidated roof. “I have heard so many good things about you,” she told Anab. After hearing Anab’s description of her daily struggle to survive, with 18 people living in her small shelter, Jolie said “it is amazing that as more and more people come into the camp they continue to be generous with what little they have.”
They arrived at the next home to find three families all crammed into a small compound with a young woman lying under a shade, clearly sick. Surrounded by his children, the owner of the shelter, Mahmoud was despondent. “We get water every two days,” he complained pointing to his five water cans. “Since the beginning of this year I have had to look after two other families here, but with the same space and the same quantity of water.”
“Fifteen people are surviving on 100 litres of water every two days,” warned Murphy, noting that UNHCR recommends a minimum of 20 litres per person per day. Looking around the compound, Jolie came away from the latrine saying “the toilets are already overflowing”. Jolie commented on the generosity that she was finding throughout the camp, “even if that means having one eighth of the water they need and their children are suffering from malnutrition.”
Before returning to the airstrip, Jolie met with UNHCR Kenya Representative Liz Ahua. “If we don’t get more land, it will be impossible to avert a major humanitarian crisis”, Ahua warned noting that UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
Antonio Guterres, received assurances in August that land would be allocated by the Kenyan Government within a week. “We hope this happens soon,” Ahua said.
Asked about her impressions, Jolie smiled warmly, “the Somali families I met today are full of warmth and affection. I wish more people could meet them, then they would have a stronger desire to help.”
Last month the UN High Commissioner announced that UNHCR will provide an extra US$20 million to meet the needs of refugees and the host community in Dadaab. UNHCR, he said, is putting maximum effort into seeking creative solutions despite the constraints. He called for a massive injection of funds from the donor community. As an emergency measure UNHCR has started moving around 12,000 new arrivals to the Kakuma camp in Northern Kenya.
UNHCR
