Red Cross Blogs

Posts tagged ‘refugees’

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The Kenya Red Cross is managing Ifo II West refugee camp in Dadaab and providing essential health and nutrition services, psycho-social support, security training and hygiene promotion services in Ifo II East. At the request of the UN Refugee Agency it is also taking on other health, water and sanitation services that were previously provided by other agencies.

The photo gallery below shows some of the health and sanitation work the Red Cross is carrying out in Dadaab.

Donate to the East Africa Food Crisis Appeal

Read blogs and stories about our work in East Africa

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In East Africa, continued difficulties accessing food – coupled with recent flooding and conflict in the region – have made life hard for many people. While working with communities in East Africa to improve their long-term resilience to food insecurity, the Red Cross is also providing immediate relief to thousands of vulnerable people in refugee camps.

Difficult conditions

Over 955,000 Somali refugees are living in countries neighbouring Somalia – over a third of whom fled the country last year. Another 1.3 million people are displaced within Somalia.

Violence in East Africa has also meant many aid agencies have stopped working in the region. In the Dadaab camps – home to more than 463,000 refugees – the threat of improvised explosive devices, kidnappings, vehicle hijackings and banditry remains high. Several police officers and refugee leaders have been killed, and aid workers have been kidnapped.

In Ethiopia, three armed men recently opened fire on the vehicle of an international non-governmental organisation near the Dollo Ado refugee camps, home to around 140,000 refugees. Again, this has had a knock-on effect on humanitarian work in the camps.

The seasonal deyr rains – which brought improved conditions for growing crops and raising animals in some parts of the Horn of Africa – caused widespread flooding in Kenya. Around 5,000 people in Ifo II East and West extension camps of Dadaab lost their shelters in the floods. Several latrines were washed away, making water-borne disease an increased risk. With malnutrition already a problem in the camps, people are particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks.

Helping refugees

The Kenya Red Cross is now managing Ifo II West refugee camp in Dadaab and providing essential services in Ifo II East. It is providing health and nutrition services, psycho-social support, security training and hygiene promotion. Some of the ways the Kenya Red Cross has helped vulnerable refugees are by:

• setting up a tented hospital and operating two health posts
• enrolling 3,150 severely malnourished children under ten in its out-patient therapeutic feeding programme
• running polio campaigns, during which over 17,800 children were immunised
• training 77 community health workers on nutrition and hygiene promotion
• training 47 community peace and security team members in areas such as human rights, crime detection and prevention, community policing and gender-based violence
• reaching 1,950 people through demonstrations on the use of soap and clean water to wash water storage cans.

Some of the funds raised from the British Red Cross’ East Africa Food Crisis Appeal are helping support the Kenya Red Cross and International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ work in the Ifo II East and West areas of Dadaab. The money will help provide logistical equipment such as vehicles, forklifts, generators, relief items, construction materials and supplies.

Donate to the East Africa Food Crisis Appeal and help support the Red Cross’ work.

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Faye Callaghan is the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ communications manager for Africa. She has  been visiting drought-stricken communities in north-east Kenya.

A red sandy track stretches far into the distance, bordered on both sides by low bush – grey and dead. The only interruption is the scattering of cows lying at the side of the road, they too are grey and dead. The scorching sun beats down relentlessly; drivers of broken down trucks seek respite in the shade under their battered vehicles.

The drought has made this part of north-east Kenya virtually uninhabitable. But with all eyes on Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, still swelling day by day with Somalis who have trekked for weeks, what of those who ordinarily live in the communities nearby?

“I had five hundred cattle once,” laments Sheikh Mohammed, resident of Lago, a village just a few kilometres from Dadaab camp. “Now what do I have? A family of twenty and nothing to feed them but the handouts we get every few months.”

At least water is one less worry for Mohammed since the Kenya Red Cross started trucking in 40,000 litres every two days to this community and hundreds of others in the Garissa region. Here people depended on shallow wells, but a lack of rain for over a year means they dried up some time ago. And with the nearest borehole 70 kilometres from Lago, the community was left in a terrible situation.

Women with babies strapped to their backs in colourful cloths wait anxiously for the truck to arrive. A donkey, exhausted from its toil, collapses before it has even been loaded with full jerry cans. The women group together to help it to its feet; without their donkey, they too will soon collapse from carrying heavy loads.

“Now my cattle have died, I want to settle here,” said Mohammed, a former Somali pastoralist. “I want my kids to go to school, but without water that’s not possible. It’s hard to live without water,” he adds, needlessly.

The Kenya Red Cross has been working in Garissa for decades and runs a successful agriculture project that has helped many former pastoralists find new livelihoods growing fruit to sell at the market. “This Tana River project has been so successful,” said Sahal Abdi, the Kenya Red Cross’ regional manager in Garissa.

If giving out food isn’t the answer, then perhaps helping them grow it is. “We want to do more work on long-term approaches, helping people change to more sustainable livelihoods. Of course we have to save lives, and that’s why we do the water trucking, but we need to stop this situation happening again,” emphasised Abdi.

Back in Lago, being able to grow food is just a dream for Sheikh Mohammed. This drought has changed his view on the future for his children. “My hope was once that my children would be pastoralists like all the generations of my family have been. Now I just hope for an education for them, and that we survive this drought.”

Since many humanitarian organisations are working in the camp in Dadaab, the Kenya Red Cross is focusing its efforts on helping local communities through the drought. It has launched an appeal for 14 million Swiss francs to continue both life-saving activities like water distribution and investment in long-term solutions.

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As part of Refugee Week, Neil McKittrick – a Belfast-based refugee services manager – is still living off just £10 for a week – and getting hungrier by the day.

Five days since my last blog and I’m still on course – not a single food item outside my £10 limit has been bought, borrowed or swapped.

On Monday morning, I went to a Belfast supermarket regularly used by destitute asylum seekers who get Red Cross support. I bought mainly carbohydrate-heavy items such as rice, pasta, potatoes and pitta bread (18p for a pack of six!) – and of course my luxury item: an 18 bag mutli-pack of crisps.

Walking out with a reasonably full basket I felt confident, until I got home and laid it out on the kitchen table. There wasn’t much there at all and – crisps aside – nothing looked like it might have any flavour.

Luckily, there was a Refugee Week event at the office, which meant cake. As I stood with some of our destitute service users (they never miss an opportunity for extra food – there’s no room for cake on a £10 weekly budget) I began to realise just how difficult this might be. I asked one of my destitute friends how he does it. He just shrugged and then smiled: ‘Never miss a chance for free cake.’

On Monday night, I had half a tin of the worst-tasting beans I’ve ever tasted with two toasted pitta breads – plus four own-brand digestives that were already disappearing at an alarming rate. It suddenly hit me, hard, that this was not going to be easy.

On Tuesday, there was already a slight concern with my blood sugars (I’m diabetic). It was nothing to really worry about but my body was clearly aware something different was taking place.

By Wednesday night, I was starving but still not looking forward to my cardboard-tasteless dinner. I was also a bit scared to eat anything in case I had nothing left before the end of the week. This wasn’t fun anymore.

On Thursday, I felt very lethargic (blood sugars were now regularly low) and hungry, but could already see the finish line in the distance. This, it goes without saying, is a luxury rarely afforded to many of our destitute service users. They go weeks, even months, without knowing when and how their circumstance might improve.

Frankly, the only reason I’ve got this far is through scrounging extra food at work meetings and social gatherings – and everyone knows (and supports) what I’m doing so they’ve been extra sympathetic. I’ve had crisps, muffins, fruit and sandwiches slipped to me regularly throughout the week.

This is cheating a bit, since people in the refugee community tend not to actively brag about their destitute status. Anyway, without the necessary social contacts and language skills, their opportunities for free food are few and far between.

Now the end is in sight, and I think I may actually make it – but I’m still left thinking my week, tough as it has been, hasn’t really been the real deal. I’ve used toiletries I already had. I was able to get lifts or drive anywhere I needed to go. I haven’t had to live with the indignities and stresses of being in the asylum system. Plus, let’s be honest, I’ve waded into scraps of free food at every opportunity.

This whole experience has tested me to the limit, but it still doesn’t represent the reality of daily life for destitute refugees and asylum seekers. Finally – and this is the bit that scares me – I knew I only had to survive for one week. How anyone faces the prospect of living like this for months on end, I cannot begin to imagine.

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With so many myths surrounding refugees and asylum seekers we are trying to sort the fact from the fiction this Refugee Week. So, do you know the difference between a refugee and asylum seeker?

1. Match the description to the term below:

1. Economic migrant
2. Refused asylum seeker
3. Refugee
4. Asylum seeker

a. Has fled their homeland and submitted an asylum application to the authorities. While awaiting this decision has a legal right to stay in the country.
b. Has had their claim for asylum accepted by the government.
c. Has been denied protection from the authorities and been told to leave the country.
d. Has moved to another country to work and may or may not have a legal work permit.

2. We’re all familiar with the scare stories about asylum seekers ‘flooding’ into the UK. But how do these tales of mass invasion stand up against the facts?

How many of the world’s displaced come to the UK?

2. How much of total immigration numbers do asylum seekers account for in the UK?

3. How many asylum seekers are allowed to stay in the UK?

3: What countries do asylum seekers come from?

There are almost 40 million people throughout the world who have been displaced because of conflict and persecution. A very small number of people actually make it to the UK to apply for asylum.

Put the following countries in order by the number of refugees:

• Afganistan
• Iran
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Zimbabwe

Leave your answers in the comments or on our Facebook page.

The British Red Cross and refugees

The Red Cross has a long tradition of providing practical and emotional support to vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

We help refugees adjust to life in the UK in a number of ways – from providing provisions for those facing severe hardship, to giving orientation support and friendly advice to those settling into a new, unfamiliar place.

Want to get involved?

Every year, our volunteers help thousands of vulnerable people – including unaccompanied children – adjust to life in a new country and access vital services. Could you help a stranger in a strange land?

Apply to volunteer

Donate to our refugee appeal

Answers can be found in our booklet, Refugees and asylum seekers: The truth behind the myths

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