DADAAB’S ‘BARE LIVES’
About 430,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Kenya face an uncertain future after the decision to shut the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps by the end of June
Nimo Jama Yusuf is one of the oldest residents of Dadaab, a cluster of refugee settlements in northern Kenya. She arrived there from Somalia in 1992, soon after it opened. Since then, it’s grown to become the world’s thirdlargest refugee complex.
Yusuf is one of about 233,000 Somali refugees and asylum seekers who are staring into the void, after Kenya said last year it would shut Dadaab (and Kakuma, home to about 200,000 refugees) by the end of June.
“I don’t have an ID, I cannot go anywhere. There’s no peace in my country and I have a child who is extremely sick, requiring blood transfusion often,” Yusuf told Doctors Without Borders (MSF), referring to her fouryear-old grandson.
Abdi Adam, like Yusuf, faces an uncertain future. He arrived in Dadaab from Somalia in 2008, having fled sectarian violence between Ethiopian and Somali armed groups. A diabetic, he too has been dependent on the 100-bed camp hospital for medical care at times, and one of his five children suffers from a cardiac problem.
The future of Dadaab has been in question since 2016 when, without proof, Kenyan authorities blamed Somali refugees for a spate of terror attacks, and singled out Dadaab as a recruiting ground for extremists. Though it ordered the camp shut, the high court found that would be unconstitutional.
Tensions between Kenya and Somalia have ratcheted up since then. In late 2020, Mogadishu cut diplomatic ties after Kenya hosted leaders from secessionist Somaliland. Complicating matters was a dispute around 100,000km² of potentially oil- and gas-rich maritime territory, awaiting judgment at the International Court of Justice. (The court found in Somalia’s favour in October.)
According to international thinktank Global Risk Insights, the camp closures were “weaponised” as leverage in the territorial dispute.
Nairobi’s pact to host refugees finally unravelled last March, when it issued an ultimatum to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to shut up shop. A plan subsequently devised by aid organisations offers three options: integration into Kenyan society, departure to a third country, or voluntary return to Somalia.
A recent MSF report on the camp closures notes that, having been denied the right to leave the camps without a pass, gain formal employment, or even study for university, camp denizens are the “living embodiment of ‘bare lives’ — or people without civic, political and economic rights”.
Almost half the residents of Dadaab were born into the camp, and know no existence outside of it. So the curtailing of their skills acquisition has made integration into Kenyan society more difficult, and guaranteed to add to that country’s vulnerable poor.
On paper, there are mechanisms in place to ease such a transition. A 2019 socioeconomic inclusion plan, for example, provides for the certification of Dadaab schools and medical facilities by Garissa County, the upgrading of the local hospital, and an extension of the national hospital insurance fund to refugees. But this stalled because of the pandemic.
And while Kenya’s Refugees Act, passed in November, allows refugees employment and education, and extends national planning to include them, MSF Kenya advocacy manager Abigael Lukhwaro is concerned that it describes the camps as “designated areas”, suggesting that, with UN aid gone, refugees will remain confined.
The second-best option, relocation to third countries, has been shrinking as host countries take on fewer asylum-seekers. In any event, Lukhwaro tells the FM, the main alternatives — Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen — are all racked by their own crises.
That leaves repatriation. But as Dadaab’s water and sanitation supervisor James
Rotich has warned: “We’ve seen those who’ve gone back through voluntary repatriation coming back with a lot of heartbreaking news through what they underwent in Somalia. They say the armed groups are still [active] … it’s not safe.”
Not that there’s great appetite to return. In 2018, 7,500 refugees were voluntarily repatriated, according to MSF; by 2020 that number had dwindled to less than 200, amid rising insecurity in the failed state.
As Adam put it: “Circumstances forced us here ... where and how would we start in Somalia?”
It’s a concern echoed by Yusuf. “Who is going to donate aid and assist if I am made to go back?” she asked.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR and
World Food Programme warned last year that a decline in funding had forced them to cut services by up to 40%, leaving many camp households food-insecure.
Sanitation and education services are faltering, and malnutrition and disease are on the rise.
For the time being, MSF and the International Rescue Committee will remain in place, Lukhwaro tells the FM. But, she adds: “I don’t know how this will end.”