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...and the host state. It is argued that these camps are characterized by deprivations of both material and physical security. Research found that refugees' dependency on inadequate aid is due to lack of alternative livelihoods rather than "dependency syndrome." However, participants expressed diminished "self-esteem" resulting from their prolonged encampment. Finally, the paper presents a critique of the failure to explore solutions for protracted refugee situations on the part of the international refugee regime.
Resume
La guerre civile de 1991 en Somali a laisse des milliers de refugies eparpilles dans les pays avoisinants. Cet article examine le sort des' 130,000 somaliens qui sont a leur deuxieme decennie dans les camps de Dadaab au Kenya, avec une emphase particuliere sur le role et les responsibilities de la convention sur les refugies et du pays hote. L'article soutient que ces camps sont caracteises par un manque de securite tant au niveau physique que materiel. Des etudes ont demontre que la dependance des refugies sur de l'assistance--quoique cette assistance est elle-meme insuffisante--decoule d'une absence de voies alternatives pour gagner sa vie plutot d'un syndrome de dependance. Toutefois, les participants ont exprime un sens diminue d'estime de sol, resultant de leur sejour prolonge dans le camp. Pour terminer. L'article examine de facon critique le fait que la convention internationale sur les refugies ait failli dans son devoir de rechercher des solutions alternatives pour des gens se retrouvant comme refugies pour un laps de temps prolongS.
Protracted political limbo still prevails in Somalia as it enters its fourteenth year of "statelessness." Despite the precarious situation of Somali refugees scattered across many parts of the world, both the country and the plight of its refugees remain off the radar of world media. The atrocities committed in the process of tumbling Siad Barre's regime in 1991, and the clan-based power struggles that followed, led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. The refugees initially fled to the neighbouring countries of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya, subsequently moving on to countries near and far. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the trials and tribulations inherent in exile in countries such as Kenya, where existing resources are barely able to meet the basic needs of the native population and where most refugees still remain in closed camps, moved on to more prosperous countries Where they obtained refugee status. Most refugees were not so fortunate, however. (1)
The focus of this paper is on the approximately 130,000 Somali refugees who remain in limbo in camps in the North Eastern Province of Kenya (NEP). (2) Dadaab, a name given to three camps (Hagadera, Ifo, and Dhagahley), is located about 100 kilometres from the Somali-Kenya border. These camps were created in mid-1992 after it became almost impossible for the international humanitarian regime to run the camps in Liboi, a border region too close to southern Somalia where violence was still occurring on a daily basis. Security concerns for international staff, refugees, and humanitarian supplies all led to the creation of new camps further inside Kenyan territory. The region where Dadaab camps are located is semi-arid and was sparsely populated by nomadic Somali-Kenyans before the arrival of refugees fleeing the war. Hostilities between Kenya and Somalia, which claimed the Somali-inhabited Northern Frontier District (NFD) as a missing Somali territory and supported regional independence movements, persisted since independence in the early 1960s. Due to this tension, Kenya kept NFD, now known as North Eastern Province of Kenya (NEP), and its population under a permanent state of emergency from independence until 1992. (3)
The scale of the refugees fleeing across the Kenyan border in the early 1990s overwhelmed both the small local nomadic population and the available scarce natural resources of the area. The presence of international organizations nevertheless brought this previously marginalized region some attention with the provision of services such as boreholes, hospitals, and schools. By March 2003, about 160,000 of the more than 400,000 Somali refugees who fled to Kenya at the height of the war remained in Kenya. Of these, 130,000 were in the three Dadaab camps, with a smaller numbers in the Kakuma camps in Northwestern Kenya, and the remainder living in urban centers such as Nairobi. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) administers the camps, with CARE responsible for social services, WFP (World Food Program) for food, and MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) for health care. (4)
While cognizant of the role the failed state of Somalia and warlords still engaged in power struggles played in the plight of Somali refugees, the central theme of the paper is the role and responsibilities of those charged with caring for refugees after they are in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The paper argues that encampment and protracted refugee situations leave thousands of men, women, and children living in limbo, resulting in wasted human capacity and deprivations of human dignity. Research in Dadaab found that refugees are dismayed by their dependency on inadequate aid, and express diminished self-worth due to their inability to better their situation or to escape from the conditions of camp life. The failure of the host state and the international community to bring about any effective intervention to free refugees from this limbo state is also examined. Here the emphasis is on the neglect of the Kenyan government, as a signatory state to many human rights and refugee covenants, to enforce the refugees' legal rights under international law. Any positive and proactive commitment on the part of this government, the paper argues, would have gone a long way to alleviate the refugees' predicament. Finally, I argue that the international refugee regime's mantra of durable solutions--reintegration, resettlement and repatriation--as the only viable options often translates to no solution and leads to a protracted state as demonstrated by the situation in which refugees find themselves. Refusal to explore other options of addressing the refugee crisis, other than care and maintenance, to end the limbo status of these refugees causes devastating consequences for displaced populations.
Encampment: Dependency, Deprivations, and Refugee "Persona"
Humanitarian organizations upon their arrival in disaster zones rarely have the luxury to assess whether camps are the best option to address human catastrophes? Once camps are created, however, the initially hoped temporality often turns out to have been wishful thinking, as demonstrated by the many cases of protracted refugee situations in the last two decades. (6) Examples of refugees...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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