Kakuma Refugee Camp

I don’t think any of our group was looking forward to visiting Kakuma Refugee Camp. We were expecting to see starving people, a hopeless situation. Photos you have seen on the news of starving refugees are taken at Dadaab Refugee Camp. It is in eastern Kenya near the border of Somalia with an estimated population of over 500,000! What we found at Kakuma Refugee Camp was nothing like that.

Although no one ever wants to live in a refugee camp, the conditions at Kakuma were decent. Perhaps that is because the camp has been in existence for almost 20 years. We actually came away from our visit with a positive and optimistic feeling. The refugees are not locked behind gates and barbed wire fences. They are free to come and go as they please both within the camp and outside. There are educational and employment opportunities within the camp, however they are a limited resource dependent upon funding.

First a little background, Kakuma Refugee Camp is located in northwestern Kenya 95 kilometers from the Sudanese border. It is also close to Ethiopia and Uganda.

This area is located in a harsh climate. Kakuma is the Kiswahili word for “nowhere”. The average daytime temperature is 104 degrees. It is in a semi-arid climate where no agriculture is possible. Kenyans who live in this area are the Turkana, nomadic pastoralists who raise goats and camels. There is not enough water or vegetation to support cattle.

Kakuma Refugee Camp was established in 1992 for Sudanese Refugees. Refugees are people that have been forcibly displaced from their home countries due to war or persecution. Many of you have probably heard of the Lost Boys of Sudan. This is the refugee camp where they lived. Today the population is about 83,000 consisting of refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Uganda and Rwanda in an area covering 13 square kilometers.

The camp is administered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Other organizations involved are: World Food Program (WFP), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Lutheran World Federation (LWF), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), Windle Trust Kenya (WTK), Film Aid International, and Salesians of Don Bosco in Kenya.

Our host for the day was Father Luke, a Salesian priest. He runs the director of the Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre. At this centre they offer training in Computer, dressmaking, electrical installation, masonry, metal work, motor vehicle mechanics, plumbing, secretarial and carpentry. However, the most popular classes are English. This is because English is the official language of the camp. During the past calendar year they have enrolled 602 students.

Here are some of the statics Fr. Luke shared with us:
• There are 250 live births a month.
• Monthly, there are 1500 new arrivals including some transferred from Dadaab.
• Many of the refugees are unaccompanied minors.
• The majority of the adult Sudanese have returned to South Sudan since independence. However, they have left their children behind because there are more educational opportunities available in the camp than in South Sudan.
• There are twelve primary schools and only one secondary school within the camp.

When refugees arrive they are provided with a tarpaulin with which to construct a home. It is then up to them to build a more permanent structure as time goes on. Food is distributed once a week.

To ease tension between the refugees and the Kenyan people who live outside the camp, 20% of the services offered in the camp are designated to go to the locals. This has greatly helped the situation. The day after we visited there was going to be a food distribution to the Turkana who are also suffering from the drought. I met a young Turkana computer student at Don Bosco. She had completed secondary school and qualified for university. While she was waiting to be admitted to the university she was taking a computer diploma course.

Click here to view more photos.