Dadaab Refugee Camps, Kenya (June 18, 2009) - They were originally built to accommodate 90,000 refugees. Today the population is at 280,000 and is growing by an average of 7000 a month. On World Refugee Day, June 20, CARE is calling attention to the urgent needs of the people in the refugee camps of Dadaab, Kenya.
Overcrowding in the camps is placing severe stress on the resources of the region and surrounding communities. UN standards for the treatment of refugees call for 20 litres of water per person per day. With population growth outpacing available water, Dadaab refugees are currently only able to receive 14.5 litres per day.
"These camps were originally built for 90,000 refugees and now we are close to three times that number. You can imagine the problem we have with waste disposal, adequate amount of water per refugee and land where people can settle," says Juergen Feldmann, CARE Senior Program Manager for the Refugee Assistance Program in Dadaab.
The Dadaab camps have existed for 18 years. An entire generation is growing up there and new families are being started. This highlights another significant need in Dadaab: education. CARE has been providing schooling for children in Dadaab, but more resources are urgently needed to train and employ more refugees as teachers, to provide quality education.
Rukia Abdullahi is a 24-year-old Somali refugee who works as teacher at a primary school in Dadaab. "We went from a classroom to another classroom. We never received any type of formal training. I have taught for four years and have acquired skills in public speaking and in counseling simply by practicing."
"In a refugee camp setting, children with special needs are like apples hanging from a tree. They are the ones that get cut first. We need to ensure that they too fulfill their potential because they also have a right to education," says Fanuel Onyuka Randiki, CARE Education Officer in Dadaab.
Waste management is also a major issue. Dadaab needs a system capable of handling 300 metric tones of solid waste every day. According to Dahia Aden Muse, one of 600 women who participate in the plastic recycling project run by CARE in the Dadaab camps: "Overpopulation of the camps is also a reason why there is so much plastic around here. All this has a negative impact on our environment. Donkeys and goats also end up eating the plastic and this causes us many problems. We could recycle a lot more but there are not enough machines available."
The Dadaab camps were opened in 1991 to accommodate Somalis fleeing the unrest in their country. Somalis still make up the majority of the people in the camps, but the population also includes people from Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea, Djibouti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since January 1, 2009, over 36,000 new refugees have arrived in Dadaab.
CARE has worked in the Dadaab camps since they opened in 1991. For the refugees in Dadaab CARE provides education, water and sanitation, income-generating activities, and programs that address issues like HIV and AIDS and gender-based violence. Through its programs CARE reaches all the refugees in the Dadaab camps. In 2008, CARE provided aid to 2.2 million refugees and people displaced by conflict, and an additional 800,000 people displaced by natural disasters, around the world.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Somali children sit on a carpet outside their tent at Ifo camp near Daadab, about 80km (50 miles) from Liboi, on the border with Somalia in north-eastern Kenya, June 19, 2009. ...
