Frontline News
© UNHCR/ K. B. Heger
A young Somali about to leave the overcrowded Dadaab
refugee camp, in Kenya. Last August UNHCR embarked on a relocation programme
aimed at decongesting Dadaab refugee camp and transferred some 13,000 refugees
to Kakuma camp in north-west Kenya.
Happy and grateful
“I am very happy, very grateful to be going to Kakuma. It will be wonderful.”
Abukar Abdikadir Ali, 44, a Somali refugee on his way from Dadaab to Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya.
After arriving last February in the congested complex of refugee camps at Dadaab, Abukar lived in a small mud brick house with his wife, six children and 74-year-old asthmatic mother-in-law. They shared their plot with two other families in a flood-prone area. So when he heard that the family would be relocated to Kakuma, he could not contain his joy. “Finally we will get a bit of space and privacy.”
Kakuma camp, he believed, would offer his children a better chance for the future: “My children need to get an education; there were no places for them in Dadaab and I hope they can go to school in Kakuma,” he said last week, while on the road to Kakuma.
For his 10-year-old son Saadiq, the three-day road trip was in itself a wonderful experience. “I enjoyed passing through all the big towns and seeing the different farming activities,” he said. “I even saw zebras and antelopes at the side of the road. Kenya is beautiful; there is no gunfire like in Somalia. I’m very excited to be going to Kakuma.”
Background info
Located some 90 kilometres from the Kenya-Somalia border, the Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo camps in Dadaab comprise the largest refugee site in the world, hosting more than 280,000 Somali refugees. Originally built to accomodate 90,000 refugees in the early 90s, the camps have been stretched to their capacities, with an average rate of 5,000 new arrivals per month. The lack of land and the aging water system are only few among many problems.
Since mid-August, UNHCR has embarked on a programme aimed at easing the congested conditions at Dadaab, which includes both the relocation of Somali refugees in Kakuma refugee camp, some 1,000 kilometres away, and the construction of a new camp. Earlier this month, the refugee agency completed the relocation of some 13,000 refugees to Kakuma camp, along the border with Sudan.
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