A visit to the frontline of famine

Me (Helen): Where's Johnson this week?  I haven't seen him
Ken: He's gone to Dadaab.

Dadaab.  A town in North-Eastern Kenya, a world away from us in Nairobi and now known for what is routinely described as the largest refugee camp in the world.  News agencies from across the globe broadcast from the camp, sharing tales of exiled, starving people from Somalia and Ethiopia.  I'm sure you've all seen them, we have too.

Johnson is my colleague at the Kenya Union of the Blind and he was invited to work at Dadaab for two weeks by the aid organisation Handicap International.  On his return I asked him if he wouldn't mind telling me about it for this blog, and he was more than willing to share what he'd heard and experienced.  The camp is the media focal point for the food crisis in the Horn of Africa, but Johnson also talks of a staggering political and social crisis.

This post continues in his words as told to me.  Although I think this is worth sharing, I'm keen to stress this is just one man's account.

Johnson Riungu
is in his late 20s, his condition worsened in primary school; he is now totally blind.

I was asked to go along to help with the registering of disabled people entering the camp, because of my knowledge in how to support those who are blind and visually impaired.  Dadaab is 100 kilometres from the border, so the UN lay on a bus to the camp.  As they get off the bus they are sorted according to their need - the malnourished go with the Red Cross and other medical agencies, and Handicap International assist persons with a disability.  For those with visual impairments, we give a white cane, maybe glasses.  Every person who arrives is issued with an energy biscuit.

We had to carry one woman off the bus she was so weak, that was humbling.  Although some don't know about the bus and arrive having walked 100 kilometres from the border.  One group of women arrived and started singing a song I didn't know, a Somali song.  They told us they were singing because they were so happy to have arrived in a place of safety.

Each family are given a piece of land, and a tent to put up on it.  Somalis who speak different dialects are placed together and the Ethiopians are placed apart.  Because there are not many of them, it is safer that way.  Rations are given out on the 15th and at the end of every month, and every refugee I spoke to says it's not enough, that's mostly what everyone talks about.  Every family are given 3kgs of maise flour, 2kgs of rice, 5 packets of spaghetti and 1 cup of cooking oil to last the 15 days til the next rations.  Larger families say it's not fair that the same amount is given to families with only one or two children.

Everyone is looking for more food, more water, more resources. All the young women sell themselves and the guards, soldiers and police are all buying. I can't work out why there are also shops there selling the same food as the rations.  How do they get that food to sell?  And why are they allowed to sell it? 

I heard that the day before I arrived, someone had been shot in the camp.  One guy left (Somali Islamist militant group) Al-Shabaab and came to Kenya.  Al-Shabaab heard about it and sent someone into the camp to kill him.  You should be safe in a refugee camp but you're not.  No-one feels completely safe.

People in the camp talk about what it would be like to 'live in Kenya' because for them the camp is not Kenya.  If they leave the camp they are caught and brought back by soldiers, because they are not allowed to be in Kenya. I heard that some make it out, and as far as Nairobi.  Everyone in the camp is waiting and hoping for relocation.  They dream of the UK, Canada or the USA where all their troubles will be over.

The UN has built good facilities there, there are football pitches and basketball courts and places for people to gather.  It's said that people should be kept busy so they don't do bad things.  We played football with a special ball with a bell in it for blind people.  The refugees were so happy I felt so glad that they could forget about their troubles for a minute or an hour.

On our last night we were invited to the UN compound by some international aid agency guys.  My god the aid workers had so much stuff there - beer AND nyama choma (beef barbecue) and they got so drunk!  Let me show you -

<He gets his mobile out and scrolls through the talking menu to play me a video he's taken. The picture is completely dark and about a dozen men singing loudly and badly can be heard>

They say they work so hard and it's such hard work here they must relax afterwards.

I spoke to a lot of visually impaired people, one young guy had walked for one month from Somalia to reach the camp.  He went to Ethopia first but they were unfriendly, and told him to go to Kenya.  He walked with his sister, and slept in bushes every night, hiding.  They left Somalia after their father had been killed in front of them.  He refused to join Al-Shabaab so they killed him. 

There are 400,000 people already in the camp, and there are 2000 people arriving every day.  It makes me wonder if god can see everyone.  It makes me ask why he doesn't help them all.