POPULATION-KENYA: A Forgotten Food Crisis in Refugee Camps

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Dec 17 2002 (IPS) - Food shortages facing refugees in Kenyan camps are so acute that more than 60 percent of children are already malnourished.

‘’In the last two months, we’ve had an increase in admissions to the therapeutic and supplementary feeding programmes. The situation has deteriorated and will further deteriorate if something does not happen urgently,” warns Blessing Ezeibe, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Kakuma refugee camp, on the Kenyan-Sudanese border.

WFP are fast-running out of food.

‘’We have just enough for January. In February, we will have no maize whatsoever. The following month, we’ll run out of salt. The following month, we’ll run out of vegetable oil and it goes on,” explains WFP’s communication officer, Laura Melo.

WFP are so concerned that they have flown one of the refugees, Fatuma Ahmed Ali, to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to publicise their plight.

‘’My weight is going down day by day. Even my eyes (are failing). I don’t have vegetables, I don’t have milk,” says the 46-year-old mother of eight.

Ali supervises food distribution at the camp, ensuring that elderly and pregnant women get served first. She says many pregnant and lactating mothers are already anaemic because of the lack of nutritious food.

‘’We want to beg donors to give us food to keep us alive. Otherwise, we are dying, all of us. Kakuma camp will become a grave,” she warns.

This is not the first time WFP has run into trouble. In February, drastic cuts were imposed, with each refugee receiving just 500 Kcal a day instead of the usual 2160 Kcal ration. The number of children attending therapeutic feeding centres went up dramatically.

With so many other food crises facing the African continent, the predicament of the 220,000 mainly Sudanese and Somali refugees in the Kakuma and Daadab refugee camps in north-west and eastern parts of Kenya is being forgotten.

‘’There are such big, high-profile crises that have emerged in Africa. Donors have this attention span which follows where the big crises are,” complains Melo.

‘’The fact that 14 million in southern Africa and 14 million Ethiopia are in need of food does not mean that these refugees go away. They are here and they will stay here for a while,” she emphasises.

‘’If we cut off food distributions, people pretty much start dying,” Melo warns.

Food shortages are also a security concern for WFP staff, as Ezeibe explains.

‘’A hungry person is an angry person. There have been cases of attacks in the camps. The former head of sub-office was assaulted,” she recalls.

‘’They don’t really understand the situation. Not all of the refugees are privileged with information. Most of the time, they think that we have got this food and we don’t want to give them. But the truth is we give what we have,” she says.

Ali, an articulate and energetic woman, is frustrated by her dependency. She has lived in Kakuma for seven years and expects to remain there for several more, given the continuing chaos in her home country, Somalia.

‘’Our situation is so bad. We are beggars. We eat whatever they give us. If they give us stones, we have to eat them,” she says.

Kakuma is situated in an extremely hot, arid part of Kenya. Little grows there. The refugees cannot keep livestock because it leads to conflict with the local, equally impoverished, Turkana people over scarce resources like grazing land.

The refugees cannot even leave the camp to collect firewood because many have been raped or assaulted.

Kenyan government policy of encampment means that refugees are not allowed to leave the camps to look for work, thus making them wholly dependent on handouts.

‘’A lot of these people have handicraft abilities. They can do little things. But the camps are located in extremely remote and hostile areas. There’s no market for them to sell. They are stuck. They can really do very little for themselves,” says Melo.

‘’We don’t have the freedom of movement to be self-reliant. The United Nations refugee agency is doing its best. But human beings need more,” complains Ali.

‘’We are not blind. We are not disabled. We can cover our lives. There are other solutions. We can farm. We can do whatever,” she urges.

Some argue that allowing the refugees to work or farm would provide a solution to the current dependency – which fatigued donors appear reluctant to continue funding.

The situation for refugees in Angola is very different. ‘’Those who are able-bodied and healthy can engage themselves in activities. They can cultivate, work on construction sites. They can do a lot of things to help themselves. They are not as restricted like those in Kakuma,” says Ezeibe.

The Kenyan government argues that refugees pose a security risk if they mix with the rest of the population. The ongoing civil wars in Sudan and Somalia have led to a serious influx of small arms into Kenya, many brought by people fleeing those countries.

In a country where millions are unemployed and living in poverty, refugees might also be resented if they are seen to be taking jobs away from indigenous Kenyans.

‘’When it comes to protection, everyone, including refugees, must be protected. But at the end of the day, Kenya is for Kenyans. That is very clear,” Kenyan police spokesperson, King’ori Mwangi, told the UN news agency, IRIN.

Aid agencies have no choice but to work within these restrictions.

‘’There are countries that allow refugees to settle in villages, work, farm and produce their own income. That could be the case in Kenya. But it is not. And that is, therefore, the reality that we have to deal with,” emphasises Melo.

‘’It is an extremely sensitive situation. But there are no better solutions for the time being. We have to respond to this,” she urges.

‘’There’s nothing much we can do but sit and wait for donors to react,” agrees Ezeibe.