Dadaab, the world´s biggest refugee camp

 Photo: Philip Hedemann

They dug the hole extra deep. Too deep for the hungry hyenas. Wrapped in a white cloth, Mohammed´s body was laid in the pit. Hawa Nuur Aden Ismail had also swaddled her only son in, white cloth a year before. Then, the new born baby had been just a little bit lighter than the stiff body that she now buried. Mohammed starved. He is not the only baby to be buried in Dadaab, Kenya, this morning.

After trekking on trucks, buses, donkey carts and on foot, hundreds of people arrive every day in the world´s biggest refugee camp. They flee famine and 20 years of civil war in Somalia.

"During the journey, I carried Mohammed on my back. Maybe, we should have stayed in Somalia. What could have been worse there than here? ", Mohammed´s mother asks. When the men put heavy sand bags on Mohammed to protect the body against the hyenas, she turns away. "He will make it", the doctors had said, when they released Mohammed from the emergency hospital two days before. Hawa had believed them.

"After 20 years of war in neighbouring country, Dadaab is not a camp anymore, but the third biggest city in Kenya. Rape, robbery, murder and kidnappings are common."

Hunger and death are as much a part of life in Dadaab as dirt and heat. Haggard Fatuma Hassan Yarow cowers in a makeshift hut made from branches, plastic canvas and cardboard. Out of big eyes, the ten year old stares into nowhere. Her left leg shakes, she doesn´t care about the flies around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth, and she is too weak to speak. "Yesterday evening, her brother Samo died. He was just one year old. We buried him this morning. I have already lost three kids in this camp. The young ones died first. I am so afraid, that Fatuma, my oldest, might die as well", her mother Owliyoo whispers.

In Dadaab, thousands of mothers fear for the life of their children. With the help of a syringe and thin hose Nishu Ali feeds special milk to her one year-old daughter Umaso in a hospital. "I saw many babies and children dying during the journey. I carried Umaso from Somalia to Kenya. She will make it", the pastoralist says. But the doubts in her voice are easy to hear. Nurse Olome Ephraim saw many children like Umaso who did not make it. "Some children arrive too late. They are so exhausted and malnourished, that even in the hospital we can´t save them", Olome says quietly.

Upon arrival in Dadaab, most refugees only have the clothes they wear and the hope to return to a home torn by war for over 20 years. For many it will never be more than hope. Hardly anybody thinks that Somalia will stabilise in the foreseeable future.

Following years of drought, now heavy rainfall flooded parts of the camps. Many makeshift shelters were destroyed, and an outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea, including some cases of cholera, has affected more than 360 refugees across the camp. At least one person has died of cholera.

Parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti are also affected by drought and flood. But there, al Shabaab extremists do not restrain foreign aid workers from supporting the local communities.  Officially, the Islamists withdrew from Somalia´s capital Mogadishu in August, but the extremists still need fighters. "The hooded men came to our house. They took my cousin. Seven days later they threw him from the back of their jeep into our yard. He had seven bullets in his head. They said, this is what will happen to everyone who does not join al Shabaab. That is why I ran away ", says 18 year-old Abdir Risaq at a registration office in the refugee camp.

After 20 years of war in in neighbouring country, Dadaab is not a camp anymore, but the third biggest city in Kenya. Rape, robbery, murder and kidnappings are common. Al Shabaab fighters try to recruit new soldiers and recover from the conflict in Somalia. "On one single day 240 young men from Somalia arrived in the camp. It seems they were fighters who came for rest and recreation", says a security expert, who does not want to be named. In October two Spanish doctors from "Medecins sans Frontieres" were kidnapped from the camp and taken to Somalia. Two attacks with improvised explosive devices were carried out in the camps in recent weeks. The deteriorating security situation has forced humanitarian agencies to scale down their work. Life-saving aid such as food distribution and urgent medical aid is continuing, but less urgent services have been temporarily suspended.

"It is challenging for agencies to balance humanitarian assistance and define an acceptable threshold of risks to the lives of staff on the ground", says Dominik Bartsch, UNHCR's head of operations in Dadaab.

In reaction to kidnappings on Kenyan territory the Kenyan army invaded Somalia in October, Al Shabaab reacted with retaliatory attacks, and the work in Dadaab became even more dangerous.

Despite the risks, hundreds of aid workers try to bring a little bit of normality back to the refugees every day. In the last twenty years, they have drilled 20 boreholes, constructed 28 schools and four hospitals, every month they distribute about 9000 tons of food, and they have established theatre and women groups.

And there are always little stories of hope. Such as that of Saxara Said. With 125 other children the ten year old sits in a tent and learns the numbers from one to ten in Somali, Arabic, English and Swahili. It is the first time in her life that Saxara can go to school. Five months ago, she fled from Somalia with her parents. Permanent fighting forced the school in her home village to close long before. "One day, I want to become a lawyer to help other people. And I want to teach my parents how to read and write", Saxara says proudly. Then, suddenly, she starts crying. Did the images of the grenade attack that killed three of her neighbours come back?

Mohammed, who they laid in the hole this morning, would also have eventually gone to this school. His small, freshly dug grave is less than 500 metres away from the tented school.