Dadaab, Kenya - They come in their thousands, travelling
across Somalia's arid landscape to seek out a new life far from the
guns and bombs that have ravaged their country for almost two
decades.
Those who can afford it make the journey in packed buses. The
others trudge hundreds of kilometres, risking attack by militiamen,
bandits and hyenas that have developed a taste for human flesh.
At the end of the journey, in east Kenya, lies the cold comfort of
Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, now buckling under the
weight of almost 280,000 souls.
Asli Omar Aden, 32, is one of over 30,000 Somalis to have fled to
Dadaab this year, bringing her two children, aged 7 and 10, with her.
It took the family two weeks to walk from Mogadishu, where battles
between government forces and insurgents have killed hundreds of
civilians and displaced over 120,000 since early May.
'When the fighting started, my husband was in the market ... there
was machine gun fire between us,' she says as she shelters beneath a
tree waiting be registered at Dadaab. 'I do not know where he is
now.'
Aden remained in Somalia throughout 19 years of conflict, which
began when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991. The
inter-clan conflicts that followed gave way in early 2007 to an
Islamist insurgency - prompted by Ethiopia's invasion - which has
killed an estimated 18,000 civilians.
When moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former
insurgent ally, was appointed as president this year, Aden began to
hope for peace.
But her hopes were dashed when insurgent groups al-Shabaab and
Hizbul Islam launched their recent offensive against Sheik Sharif. As
the latest round of bullets flew around her, she knew it was time to
go.
'There is no hope for peace in Somalia,' she says.
Newcomers - currently arriving at a rate of 500 per day - see
Dadaab as a refuge from both the fighting and a drought that has left
millions of Somalis dependent on food aid.
'Here, I feel no fear, I don't hear machine guns, I don't see
bombs,' says Magala Nuur, 40, who lost her husband and a son to
fighting in Kolbio, south Somalia. 'I want to settle here.'
However, once the initial relief has worn off, many dream of
escape from the camp.
'I only stay because it is peaceful,' says Amina Mohamed Hassan,
23, a stallholder who has lived in Dadaab for 11 months. 'I want to
be resettled somewhere that will offer a better life.'
Hassan supplements her daily rations by selling vegetables and
other odds and ends brought in from the nearby town of Garissa. Her
unofficial business makes her luckier than most. But she still has to
face massive overcrowding.
Dadaab's three camps - Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley - were built in
the early 1990s to accommodate 90,000 refugees, but Somalia's
never-ending conflict has forced the United Nations refugee agency
(UNHCR) to keep cramming them in.
The congestion is straining the camp's infrastructure,
particularly its water supply.
Hassan's makeshift stall sits on the edge of the emergency tented
section in Ifo. While the camp's older areas look more like villages,
complete with large markets, this area is grim.
Rubbish litters the narrow gaps between UNHCR tents, ratty
mattresses and washing lie across the thornbush barriers erected to
stake out territory, and huge holes in the dry, sandy soil mark where
refugees have excavated earth to build huts.
UNHCR officials say in some cases up to 30 people are living on
plots designed for a family of five. But the agency can do little to
ease the overcrowding. It has no more land to allocate.
The agency has requested land for a fourth camp, but the Kenyan
government, concerned over the size of Dadaab, is reluctant to
comply.
'The biggest issue is land - if we get it it will solve many
issues,' says Anne Campbell, Head of UNHCR's Sub-office Dadaab. 'We
could have more boreholes and settle people in a more humanitarian
way.'
UNHCR has come under fire from some human rights bodies, who say
the camp is a mess. But others feel the criticism is unfair.
'Considering the number of people arriving and the constraints,
the agencies have done what they can,' says Yves Horent, head of the
Kenya office at the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid department
(ECHO), which funds some of the agencies in the camp.
'People are surviving, which is a success, but surviving is not
living,' he adds. 'That is the next challenge.'
However, with peace in Somalia a distant prospect, the camp's
population set to exceed 300,000 in the near future despite the lack
of space, and a funding shortage brought on by the global financial
crisis, it seems survival is all Dadaab's residents can hope for.
USA
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