A humanitarian emergency is unfolding in the world’s biggest refugee camp in Kenya, where malnourished children arriving from Somalia wait unsheltered in the desert for an average of 12 days to be given food, medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a report on Thursday.
The Kenyan government closed its border to refugees fleeing war in neighbouring Somalia in 2007, citing security concerns, and the United Nations (U.N.) announced in 2008 it had no more space for new arrivals.
But conflict and the worst drought in years have forced 44,000 Somalis to seek admittance into Dadaab camp since the start of this year.
“The camps are completely full. People are arriving and they do not find any space anymore, meaning they don’t have access to water and other facilities,” Joke van Peteghem, MSF’s head of mission in Kenya, told AlertNet.
“You get more and more people sitting outside of the camp without proper protection and proper support.”
Humanitarian agencies are unable to get food aid into Somalia, which has been at war since 1991, because Al Shabaab rebels fighting the government are hostile towards them.
HEALTH EMERGENCY
When child mortality rates in MSF’s intensive feeding programme in the camp’s hospital started to spike, the agency hired extra community health workers to search for malnourished children among new arrivals to ensure they receive treatment faster.
It has set up a temporary health post in the new arrivals area, which sees 110 patients a day.
On arrival, 60 percent of families report illness, having walked through the desert for many days with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
“People, and especially children under five, are coming in worse physical condition. We are observing more and more children being malnourished,” said van Peteghem.
“If you take a week before they get proper food and they look for healthcare, for sure the status of these children will deteriorate.”
In MSF’s hospital in the camp, tents have been set up on the grounds and extra beds crammed into the maternity ward to accommodate some of the 864 severely malnourished children receiving treatment. An additional 2,387 children are receiving supplementary feeding for moderate malnutrition.
“Health indicators are now at an emergency level,” said Gedi Mohammed, director of the hospital.
HYENAS KILL CHILDREN
Upon arrival, families build makeshift shelters to shield themselves from the burning desert sun, using whatever materials they can find. It takes an average of 34 days to receive blankets and cooking utensils from the U.N.’s refugee agency.
“We’ve got nothing to build a shelter with,” Fatima, a 34-year-old refugee from Mogadishu, said in the report: No Way In: The Biggest Refugee Camp in the World is Full.
“It’s very unsafe here – at night we’re scared that wild animals will eat the children, and we’ve had threats of violence from local people who say the land is theirs.”
“Children are even being killed by hyenas because they have no protection. The men sleep during the day and try to protect their families at night…. It is a group of human beings living in conditions most of us can’t imagine,” MSF’s community outreach nurse, Nenna Arnold said in a statement.
The registration centre is 10km from the arrival point and it takes refugees an average of nine days to find out about it and travel there to register and receive a ration card.
The camp is a sprawling city in the desert, home to 350,000 refugees. The U.N.’s refugee agency predicts that it will host 450,000 people – twice the population of Geneva – by the end of 2011. It was built 20 years ago to house a population one fifth that size.
An extension to the camps, which has space for 40,000 refugees, lies half-built and empty following a breakdown in negotiations between the Kenyan government and the U.N. last year.
The Kenyan government is reluctant to allow any expansion of the camp because of the environmental pressure on its own population, also hard hit by drought. It has suggested that new camps be built inside Somalia instead.
It is illegal under international law to deny sanctuary to refugees. But the international community has failed to persuade Kenya to reopen its border and the U.N. reception centre at the border town of Liboi.
On Tuesday, a U.S. agency, FEWSNET, warned that Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are experiencing the “most severe food security emergency in the world today, and the current humanitarian response is inadequate to prevent further deterioration.”
MSF is calling for proper reception and registration facilities to be restored, including the provision of health screening and transport between the border and the camp, 80km inside Kenya.
It also wants the extension to be opened and new land allocated for refugee settlement.
Source: www.trust.org
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