wfn.org | LWI 2008-042 FEATURE: Awar Is Ready to Return Home

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FEATURE: Awar Is Ready to Return Home

A Major Transition at LWF-Run Refugee Camp in Kenya

KAKUMA, Northwest Kenya/GENEVA, 17 July 2008 July (LWI) – In
the hot, remote and rugged areas of Lokichoggio in northwestern
Kenya, where the Kakuma Refugee Camp is located, it is mixed
feelings of joy and sadness, as Southern Sudanese who took refuge
there prepare to leave a place that has been home to many, for
more than a decade. 

This is where Lutheran World Information (LWI) found Ms Kuei
Awar preparing to return home after 16 years in exile.

"I think South Sudan is safe. I am ready to go," she told LWI,
during a visit by some members of the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) Council, prior to their 25-30 June meeting in Arusha,
Tanzania. 

"I arrived here when I was 15 years old, as a single girl, but
now I am returning as a mother of six children," she noted. 

Like other refugees, Awar received education and professional
skills, which, she said she capped "with another feather, a
'husband.'" 

"I should now be settling back home but I have just been blessed
with twins. I will wait a little longer, and leave as soon as I
can carry the babies," she said at the camp's repatriation unit.

>Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Three years ago, the announcement of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) signed between the former rebels, the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Government
of Sudan, was received as good news at Kakuma, located some 100
kilometers from Kenya's border with Sudan and Uganda and almost
1,000 kilometers from the capital Nairobi. Sudanese nationals,
who had fled the impact of 21 years of civil war between the two
adversaries started returning home in large numbers, either on
their own or through the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR)-coordinated repatriation. 

At the camp where the LWF Department of World Service (DWS)
Kenya/Sudan program is the lead implementing agency for UNHCR and
the Government of Kenya, officials say the organization
facilitated the return of 4,686 refugees, while 14,475 left on
their own in 2007.

In collaboration with its partners such as Action by Church
Together (ACT) International, a global alliance of churches and
related agencies, DWS has been providing the displaced Sudanese
with water, shelter, food and non-food items, and put up schools
to ensure continued education.

The Sudanese departure is expected to tilt the demography of the
camp covering an area of some 25 square kilometers. On the Move,
the 2007 LWF/DWS annual report for Kenya and Sudan states the
camp had 60,842 refugees by the end of last year, a significant
decrease from the 87,086 at the beginning of the year. 

"Donors continued to reduce their levels of support for
refugees, causing concern among the refugees that forced
repatriation was being undertaken and their basic need and rights
are not being met," the report stated.

"The Sudanese are the majority here. Now that they are going
back, there is a big gap," said William Tembu, camp project
coordinator. He noted the number of returnees had accelerated by
early this year, with 8,500 people going back to South Sudan
between March and May. 

"They (locals) are complaining a bit about all the Sudanese
leaving because of the fringe benefits associated with camp’s
location," said Philip Wijmans, DWS Kenya representative. He
however noted, there would still be a core group of around 30,000
from other countries that will remain in the camp.

>Preparation

George Omondi, the camp's youth and development officer,
explained how the potential returnees are prepared for the
situations back home.

"The Sudanese people are basically agriculturalists and
livestock [owners]. We are talking about a people who have been
away from that kind of lifestyle for 16 years. A child born in
the camp is bound to find the lifestyle in Sudan quite
different," he said. 

Some of the children would be returning home without the
slightest idea of the cultural practices of the people who would
be receiving them, Omondi noted, as he explained the LWF's
involvement in cultural orientation sessions that included
display of traditional regalia. 

"We asked the Sudanese elders in the community to share with
them life stories about traditional heroes as a way of connecting
them with the realities on the ground," he said. 

Still, the camp is welcoming new residents, although in
relatively fewer numbers. In 2007, nearly 2,000 mainly Somali
refugees arrived from the Dadaab refugee camp, northeastern
Kenya. Others came from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and from Sudan’s Darfur region. 

Wijmans noted there were already about 14,000 Somali refugees in
Kakuma, which would increase slightly with the arrival of the
numbers from Dadaab. 

>Camp Conflicts

Turkana district is classified under the arid and semi-arid
lands (ASAL), experiencing extremely high temperatures, erratic
rainfall and extended drought seasons. Livestock production
including camels, cattle and donkeys is the mainstay of the
region’s nomadic pastoralists. Since the 1992 arrival of the
first 300 refugees in Kakuma, the host Turkana community found
itself in conflict with the camp’s residents on day to day
relationships, and over scarce resources such as water, grazing
pastures and basic health facilities. Community peace committees
formed through LWF's intervention have helped to influence
positive attitudes between refugees from eight nationalities each
with their own religion, culture and traditions, and in their
relationship to the host community. 

"In the past, there were incidents of insecurity, but that has
been stopped through the use of the peace committees," said area
councilor, Patrick Losike. Still, he noted, the increasingly
serious water shortages and limited or few health centers may
disturb the harmony that has been achieved. 

"The most pressing problem now is lack of water. There are two
boreholes, a water mill and river borehole, but all are
underutilized because of frequent break downs and lack of diesel.
Water rationing is a norm here. This is unacceptable," stressed
area chief, Cosmas Nakaya.

Responding to the local leaders' call for continued DWS
assistance, LWF Treasurer Peter Stoll, a member of the LWF
Council delegation to Kakuma said, "What brings us here is to
make us understand the problems and the things that need to be
done better. Therefore, working together, we can make peace," he
said to the cheers of dancing women.

Amid the major transition for the different stakeholders in
Kakuma, ordinary life continues - a football or basketball game
by girls or boys, with a sizeable crowd of spectators cheering
on. Also, LWF-supported income-generating activities for women
and skills' training such as carpentry for men, open
opportunities to supplement refugees’ family income. (1,098
words)

By Nairobi (Kenya)-based LWI correspondent Fredrick Nzwili,
accompanying the LWF Council delegation to Kakuma in June 2008.

>*Photos available 

>*        *          *

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as ecumenical and interfaith relations, theology, humanitarian
assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects
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Geneva, Switzerland.)

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