• Kenyan civil rights institutions and human rights organisations have also failed us deliberately
• The conditions are pathetic and dehumanising, what with the endemic confinement.
Image: OZONE
Refugees are ordinary human beings living in foreign countries. They are found all over the world.
And while they are treated well in some countries, refugees in Dadaab camp, Garissa county, are living in the worst conditions. They live in open-air prisons called camps for over 30 years. They are technically held incommunicado and can't reach Garissa for medical, education, business and ordinary visits.
The conditions are pathetic and dehumanising, what with the endemic confinement. We can't access media outlets and human rights Organisations in these remote parts of the country. Most refugees in the world enjoy the privileges of free movement and integrations. However, refugees living in these sprawling encampments in Dadaab seem to be the world's most forgotten and voiceless as nobody seems to know we exist, let alone address our plight.
The hosts — including the public and politicians and other leaders — don't seem to know our plight and predicament.
Every five years, Kenyans go to the polls to elect their leaders, while we are ignored and remain totally voiceless and forgotten. The media has technically refused to highlight and update our challenges to the world. We have languished in these prisons since 1990s.
The UNHCR does its best for us and even funds vital local projects for the host communities for refugees' sake. Its advancement of refugees' rights is incapacitated by the bureaucracies of the national government.
The Garissa county government only comes to the camps to collect taxes from our business stalls without offering services to us. The government had issued us with alien cards, which are useless since we can't use them to venture outside. There is a deafening and devastating silence by the media — a blackout of sorts. The media has refused to be our voice on the basis of the code of the conduct and principles of the media professionalism.
Kenyan civil rights institutions and human rights organisations have also failed us deliberately and tragically due to various factors, including the remoteness of our camps and marginalisations. We even wrote to the MCK and KHRC in vain.
Every year, World Refugee Day celebrations are commemorated in our camps with zero media coverage and reportage. We don't know when we shall have a voice through the media so that our problems can be resolutely addressed.
We appreciate the coverage of a vernacular FM station called the Star FM, which is all our connections to the world and we can't imagine how our lives would have been without its coverage.
We now appeal for a new beginning, while also burying the hatchets. If you study and scrutinise global refugee trends, diverse conditions, sadly would agree that these are the worst refugees in terms of negligence, confinement and tragic tale of two generations. The camps are extremely secure and safe to survive with crime rates almost non-existent. The xenophobia, stereotypes and perceptions are depressing with catastrophic consequences. The National Police Service officers here are very friendly, competent and professional, which can be attributed and credited to the senior commanders and the UNHCR that supports the operations in the camps.
The persistent confinement had impacted on the opportunities and prospects available for Refugees while the magnitude of poverty and misery is skyrocketing day after with no thing good on sight. If we were Kikuyu or Kalenjin refugees from a neighbouring country, living in Mt Kenya or the Rift Valley, our fate would have been different because the areas are neither remote nor marginalised.
We would have been integrated into the country long before the millennium- we would not have been overlooked, ignored, neglected and forgotten by all spheres of media outlets, civil society groups, human rights organisations and to the larger extent by the national government.
We are still subjected to the Refugee Constitutional clauses and Acts of 1970s long before multipartyism was introduced and implemented. So these remote camps with brutal confinement had shattered our dreams, dashed our hopes and potential.
But being a refugee in Dadaab camps is a terribly double tragedy where you can't access opportunities and prospects. The youth are languishing in poverty, unemployment, hopelessness and lack of opportunities.
Our hosts are ethnic Somalis with their fair share of challenges. They would never accept or accommodate our inspirations for integration for fear of being overwhelmed and overpopulated. Therefore, they can't sacrifice and take risks to succumb to external human waves and competitions in trade, politics and most significantly elective politics in the constituency, county or the national slots.
Nevertheless, we want to enjoy the privileges of free movement, if we can't be integrated into the country. Refugees all over the world enjoy free movement and integration, which is why refugees resettled in 3rd world countries are coming back with foreign passports while we are still confined to these open-air prisons called camps.
Dear editor and journalists, We request you to be our voice and mouthpiece on the basis of the profession. Please help us reach Kenyan public, government human rights organisations and civil society groups on humanitarian grounds.
Hussein Ahmed Ali is a refugee leader Dagahley, Dadaab camps.