The scene at the world’s largest refugee camp is “grim” but “not a place of despair” according to Presbyterian World Service and Development’s communications coordinator, who visited eastern Africa from July 25 to August 10.
Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya’s North Eastern Province has been flooded by a stream of Somalian refugees seeking food, water and shelter since a multi – year drought destroyed crops and livestock in the Horn of Africa.
“The grim pictures on the news are true: I have seen children that embody what a heartbreak must look like,” Barb Summers blogged from the camp on Aug. 5. She described a desolate plain densely covered with tents and dome – shaped tukuls “stretching out nearly as far as the eye can see,” and lines of people “in tattered clothes with sunken eyes, emaciated, malnourished and exhausted” at its well – guarded gates.
The drought has left about 11.3 million people in the Horn of Africa in need of assistance, and southern Somalia is the hardest hit with an estimated 3.7 million people—or half the population—in need.
However, humanitarian aid has been severely limited in southern areas controlled by Al – Shabab, a militant group that has maintained bans on many major aid agencies including the UN’s World Food Program. Hungry Somalis are fleeing to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya, or to the government – controlled capital of Mogadishu.
At Dadaab, a camp that grows by about 1,000 people each day, Summers said calm pervades.
“It’s a tale of people having gone through unbelievable circumstances but they have arrived!” she told the Record. “I’ve never seen such a well – organized, dedicated and efficient ‘aid machine’ and the coolest part is that Lutheran World Federation, our partners there, are the ones that oversee the whole thing.”
Through its partnership with the ACT Alliance, the Presbyterian Church’s aid department is providing food, water, shelter and other essentials to 300,000 refugees in Dadaab and 10,000 members of the host community, and plan to establish emergency education and livelihood recovery programs.
In the Goro district of Ethiopia, another area hurt by famine, it is working with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Canadian Lutheran World Relief to provide more than 1,900 tonnes of food to 18,350 people. Summers also visited Ethiopia as part of her monitoring trip.
The government of Canada will match donations for famine relief made by Canadians to eligible charities until Sept. 16. The government’s donation will be administered separately by the Canadian International Development Agency.
For updates on PWS&D’s work, and to read Barb Summers’ blog, see presbyterian.ca/pwsd.
