Some colleagues and I took a day trip in a 5-seater airplane to Dadaab in Eastern Kenya, which is host to 170,000 Somali refugees, spread out in 3 camps. The camps are some distance from the border, and have been there for 16 years. But almost half of those refugees came to Kenya within the last few months due to insecurity caused by fighting between the transitional government and the Union of Islamic Courts.

The UN and its NGO (non-governmental organization) partners have done quite a good job of managing the camps and providing for the basic needs of the refugees. Security is quite strict, and it is necessary to have an escort for travel between each of the camps and the UN/NGO bases. The Government of Kenya does not allow the refugees to leave the Dadaab area, and so they have little or no opportunity to provide for themselves. This is a very arid part of Kenya, and not much grows here. Many Somalis are pastoralists and a number of the refugees have animals that they graze in the areas surrounding the camps. But basic food and non-food commodities, water, health care and education have to be provided by the international c infrastructure in that country. Thus, their time in the camps provides a unique opportunity to the international community.

In spite of these provisions, malnutrition rates in the camps are very high, and the organizations working there have come to the conclusion that it is not for lack of food. For example, the mother in this picture seems to be in very good health, compared to her visibly malnourished baby. The reasons seem to lie in the infant and young child feeding practices, such as giving babies sugar water after birth, giving babies liquids (such as animal milks) other than breastmilk during the first six months, giving weaning foods that do not have enough nutrients, etc. We heard that the number of admissions to the nutrition centers increases after Ramadan, indicating that some young children fast during that time like the adults. This is an area that we are ommunity. Here the refugees have exposure to education and health practices that they might not have in Somalia due to the poorhoping to do more research on so we can find ways of addressing the issues.

While in Kenya I also go to visit my old boss Keith and his family and to meet the darling Kenyan baby they are adopting – Fiona.

And I had a special treat before I left Kenya - I overlapped for two hours at the Nairobi airport with my brother Steve who lives in Niger.

Assessment mission to Chad

I spent the end of January/early February in Chad with a team of 6 other people representing a total of 5 organizations to assess needs in Chad an opportunities for intervention.

We started out in the capital N’Djamena, where I celebrated my birthday with the assessment team members and also with my friend from grad school Simeon who is working there as a nutritionist.

We spent most of our time in the eastern part of the country which borders Darfur, and shares many commonalities with that part of Sudan, such as the topography, some of the people groups, desertification, a rapidly shrinking water table, tension between “arab” nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, and unfortunately, political conflict.

We stayed in the eastern city of Abéché with another NGO who kindly hosted us. During the day we met with people working in the refugee camps and/or assisting displaced Chadians and local villages, and in the evening we hung out with our hosts, since a curfew prevented us from venturing too far. One of the more adventurous parts of or stay with them involved preparing and tasting a local delicacy: locusts (fried with lemon and salt, and minus the wings and legs).

Access to the 12 refugee camps that house the 230,000 Darfuri refugees can be difficult because of security, but we were able to visit Gaga camp 1 ½ hours out of Abéché. Thanks to its relative accessibility, this could be considered the “Hilton” of the refugee camps, with a good medical clinic, sufficient water, access to some agricultural land and basic veterinary services for those refugees lucky enough to still have animals.

But don’t get the wrong idea, this is still a refugee camp, and most of the people living here lost everything they had when the fled their homeland. It was heartening that in spite of the difficult life, the people were friendly and welcoming, and the children especially, were excited to see us!

Four members of our team (not including me) spent some time in the refugee camp and IPD (internally displaced people) settlements farther south in the Goz Beida area. They visited the village from which some of the IPDs originated, which had been attacked and burned to the ground just after the harvest last October. 40 men of the 2,500 inhabitants were killed, some of the women were taken away for several days and abused, and all the animals and harvested grain were stolen. The villagers said the attackers were “Janjawit” (armed men on horses) from Sudan, but it’s often difficult to tell who the culprits are exactly. Now they live in an improvised settlement, competing with the local villagers, other IDPs and the refugees for water, agricultural land to borrow or rent and jobs, in order to get by (photo of burned village by Ray Buchanan).

Insecurity is caused by the presence of a number of armed groups who attack at will: Chadian rebels trying to overthrow the government, who are sometimes allied with Darfuri rebel groups, “Janjawit” who could be Sudanese or Chadian, and bandits.

The IDPs for the most part are worse off than the refugees, since they do not receive consistent assistance. IDPs technically are the responsibility of national governments, and in the absence of forthcoming assistance from the latter, it is not always clear who should step in with a mandate to look after them. This is a gap that our team identified and we hope that we will be able to step in and help to fill this gap.

Photos by David Lynn: Girls getting water from a borehole and man drinking filthy water from an unprotected well.