Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Starving Somali children arriving at the world's largest refugee camp are having to wait up to 10 weeks for proper food rations because of Kenyan red tape, aid agencies warned on Tuesday.
Growing numbers of the children - who often walk for weeks to escape the Somali famine zone - are becoming more ill and malnourished even after reaching the Dadaab refugee camp, according to staff working for respected medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières.
Unni Karunakara, MSF's international president, blamed Kenyan bureaucracy. Somalis arriving in Dadaab are not eligible for full food packages until Kenya officially recognizes them as refugees, a process that is now taking "eight to 10 weeks," Karunakara said.
Before that, they are given 21 days of less nutritious emergency food, and can then apply only for a further 15 days of supplies, according to the UN's World Food Program, leaving them short by about five weeks. The gap in rations means that the children's condition can worsen - sometimes fatally - even though they are now close to the world's largest emergency humanitarian operation. Because families recognized as refugee and thus getting food are sharing with those who have none, it has a ripple effect on other refugees.
"The nutritional status of refugees is deteriorating even after arrival at the camps due to bureaucratic delays," said Karunakara. "This is a critical point in which health status can deteriorate."
Haredo Mohamed's fivemonth-old child died this week because of "poor living conditions" and a 51-day wait for official food rations.
"We came here because of suffering at home in Somalia, and we thought we would find shelter and food," she said, sitting in a red shawl outside her ragand-stick shelter in Dadaab. "But there was no one here to receive us. It took three weeks to get ration cards, but then we were not on the list. Our child got much worse during this time." Her family had been forced to "become beggars" for food from neighbours.
The crisis is a measure of the chaos in the camp, which was built to house 90,000 but where there are now more than 390,000. A further 1,300 a day are streaming over the border.
"We need to do better than pushing them out to live in the bush," said Prasant Naik, head of Save The Children in Kenya. "When they are outside the main camp, they struggle to find clinics, feeding centres and schools. It's having a huge impact on children."
Because families are sharing what little food they have, carefully calculated rations are being spread too thinly to help children back to health.
Kenya's government insists that it vets all refugees because it has grave concerns over security and fears that al-Qaida-linked militants from Somalia are trying to infiltrate the camp.
But its officials have few facilities in Dadaab. All details, including fingerprints, have to be driven more than 12 hours back to Nairobi for security checks before refugees are officially recognized.
Across the Horn of Africa, Oxfam warned that the crisis was "spiralling out of control" and that the number of people in need could soon jump by a quarter to more than 15 million.
Separately, Valerie Amos, the UN's aid chief, said that famine conditions could spread from two regions of Somalia to almost
"East Africa's humanitarian crisis is at the tipping point," said Elise Ford, Oxfam's spokeswoman in Nairobi. "Hundreds of thousands will face starvation unless donors step forward, maintain the generosity we have seen in recent weeks and help prevent a catastrophe."
FATAL FIGURES
How the crisis adds up 40,434: New arrivals at Dadaab in July, more than ever in its 20-year history.
390,000: Refugees in the camp, which was designed for 90,000.
29: Cases of measles in the camp, raising fears of an outbreak.
15 million: People Oxfam warns will need help soon, a 25-percent increase.
Six: More regions of southern Somalia likely to tip into famine, from the current two.
Three: Months until rains due in the Horn of Africa.
100,000: People who have fled to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, since June.
$952,000: Amount raised for food aid by individual Kenyan donors.
$2.3 billion: The amount of help the UN has asked governments for, of which only $890,000 has been provided.