A camp this size requires tremendous infrastructure. For two hundred thousand people at least 3 million litres of drinking water is needed each day, if people are to receive the minimum standard amount of 15 litres of water per person per day. Water is pumped from 120 meters below the scorched equatorial earth, chlorinated, and then distributed to the hundreds of tap stands around the camps. Currently the camp management pumps about 18 litres per person per day, but no one I talked with received this much. Lots of water is lost due to leaks and spillages at tap stands. Feeding the camp population requires approximately two million kilograms of food a month, hundreds of thousands of kilograms of firewood for cooking, and thousands of latrines to receive the waste. On top of this are medicines, schools, security, and all the other essentials of life.
A mother and child in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, near the Somali border.
Photo by Sebastian Bolesch/Das Fotoarchiv, 2001
On arrival at Ifo, your family is given a plastic sheet, some sticks, soap, a jerry can, a cooking kit, and some string. You are walked to your plot, shown the perimeter inscribed in the dirt, and left to build your shelter. There’s no shelling here, but it is hard in a different way. That night you lie on the bare ground, hearing other families talking nearby and children crying. You stay up late, thinking hard about what hope is left. It is a long night, and the one after that is long too. You meet people and quickly form allegiances with those you trust. At night there are robberies in the new arrivals area, where neighbourhood security hasn’t been established yet. The reality sets in further. A few days after arriving, a letter is passed around saying that food distribution has started. You carry back the half-month supply of rice, corn, lentils, oil and salt that will be the only food you eat, every day for the rest of your stay in the camp. A half-month supply of food isn’t very heavy, maybe 8-10 kilograms per person.
One man told us about bringing his three sick children to the hospital and being told to come back with only one child per day, as the hospital was too busy. With no other options, he did. Later he came looking for some assistance for himself. He had an x-ray from Mogadishu of the bullet lodged in his buttocks, he was missing the fingers from his right hand, his face was burned and cut, and his wounded ankle was getting infected. But there was little help here for him. His problems weren’t considered emergencies. Dressing material for his ankle was out of stock and he couldn’t afford to buy it from the private pharmacy. There were many stories like this.
Read more accounts from Steve's journey to the camps, based on conversations with camp residents...
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MSF worked in the Dadaab camps on a permanent basis from 1991 until 2004 when we handed over to other medical NGO's. Since then we have assisted the population during recent flooding and cholera emergencies. This report was taken during a recent exploratory mission with the mandate to assess the needs of the newly arrived refugees.