The two sides of Dadaab refugee camp

By Boniface Ongeri and Adow Jubat

At 59, Alaso Waaris Ammey thought she had seen it all in ungovernable Somalia. Since the fall of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre’s government in 1991, gunshots, bodies, hand grenades and rocket missiles had become the sights and sounds of the failed state.

Things changed in April. "I watched as a teenage boy blew himself up in a crowd in our local market. I could not stomach the sight of scattered body parts. My grandson was among those killed," she says.

Now at the packed Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa District, she says the incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

"I will never go back home. I have seen enough of bloodletting," she says. "I have lost several close family members to the war. I can’t watch more killed".

The Standard on Saturday caught up with her putting up a shelter using sticks and plastic bags. There was downpour a week earlier but the scorching sun has erased evidence of rain.

About five of the 10 family members squatting inside the unfinished shack wear haggard looks.

They are just two weeks old in the camp, after fleeing the latest turbulence pitting the Somali Transitional Federal Government of President Sheriff Hassan against Islamist insurgents.

The new arrivals are locally known as baxtas or taxrib — Somali for latest escapees. United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera says about 120 Somalis arrive every day, putting strain to the already congested camps.

The families arrive aboard crammed vehicles, on donkey carts or on foot. Many have lost count of the number of times they have been to these camps. "It has become routine; head back to Somali when there is calm and take cover in Kenya when it gets tumultuous," says Abdi Yarre Hussein, 47.

Hussein is waiting for UNHCR registration card at the agency’s offices in Dadaab. He has been trading in gold besides running a money transfer bureau in Somalia. But he is now a squatter.

Most of the new entrants are from the capital, Mogadishu, particularly Danile and Makka villages. Others are from Baidoa and Kismayu.

"We are ashamed but circumstances force us to line up for relief handouts. Most of us run businesses that can cater for extended families back home. We only require peace, which is elusive," the spindly father of four says. Others have taken the predicament in their stride and have started a new life in the refugee camps.

Business Hub

The usual image of the camps is that of misery and despair. But Dadaab represents two sides of the coin. Here, legal and illegal businesses thrive. The refugees have almost single-handedly helped develop the neighbouring Dadaab town. The centre virtually rose from an isolated and uninviting location in 1991 to an internationally recognised one-stop shopping centre for traders, visitors and aid workers. The camps may be far away, but Dadaab town is a thriving business hub — aided by what residents call refugee tourism.

Almost everything under the sun is traded in the camps — from petroleum products, second-hand cars and spare parts, electronics, textiles, satellite dishes, mobile phones to foodstuffs. Even gold is traded here.

Goods, especially food, are cheap because they come from Kismayu port in Somalia where no duty is paid. Guns from the war-scarred nation are also easily available.

Life Goes On

"Instead of mulling over the war back in our country, life has to go on," says Hussein Absi, whose father runs the biggest chemist and laboratory in Hagadera — one of the refugee camps that make the larger Dadaab.

Private primary and secondary schools also thrive here, taking advantage of the insatiable appetite for education. The camps have also numerous ‘medical colleges’ whose ‘graduates’ run private clinics. They are fondly referred to as ‘doctor’, ‘teacher’ and ‘engineer’, never mind that some are Standard Eight dropouts.

Hawalat, or money transfer bureaus, also clog the camps with millions of shillings — including US dollars, Euros and Sterling Pounds — exchanging hands daily. They are run by refugee millionaires, who queue for relief handouts during the day but call the shots on virtually all aspects of the economy. Their wattle and daub homes are in sharp contrast to the sorry surroundings. Satellite dishes jut out of their humble abodes to keep the millionaires abreast with happenings in Kenya, Somalia and the rest of the world.

The best hotels and lodges line the sandy boulevards in the camps. Security is guaranteed. The camps have electricity, something that lacks in remote villages of North Eastern Province.

Electricity is not supplied by Kenya Power and Lighting Company or UNHCR; it is diesel generated. In Hagadera refugee camp alone, there are at least five individuals who supply electricity on commercial arrangements to the wattle and daub homes.

Power Supply

Mohammed Bashir, who runs Towfiq Power Station, has been supplying electricity to Hagadera since 2004.

"We might be lacking a stable government back home but we don’t lack business minds," says Bashir, who fled Somalia in 1991.

He supplies more than 80 households, more than 30 eateries and several computer colleges. He charges a flat rate of Sh1,500 for residential and Sh3,000 for business premises per month.

The power lines hang precariously on sticks that act as poles, with live wire crisscrossing the sandy surface. Surprisingly, no reports of electrocution have been made.

Some refugees have cottages, while others package and sell bottled water as far as Garissa and Wajir. The established refugees often offer a soft landing for the new arrivals, many of them close relatives.

"When I arrived here I found it easy because my relatives had already settled," says Bashir.

Most integrate into the country after dubiously acquiring Kenyan identity cards. There are reports they bribe authorities with upward of Sh20,000 to be given priority at the expense of Kenyans.

The Kenya Anti Corruption Commission report in April stated that Somalis buy Kenyan nationality and some officials are accomplices in the scam.

Others are relocated to US and European countries under the International Organisation for Migration. More than 12,000 have been relocated since the programme was introduced in 2003.

Those who are not lucky to be relocated, buy property or get citizenship live under squalid conditions in camps for long before being officially recognised as refugees by the UNHCR. "We have tried to get registered since we arrived a fortnight ago but we have not been lucky," says Nuria Abdi, a new arrival.

They mostly rely on well wishers for food, as they wait to be issued with refugee cards to enable them queue for food rations and medical care. This is where the Ammey family belongs.