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Kenya: Uneasy Neighbors

Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp was for years among the world’s most famous, home to the “Lost Boys” of southern Sudan and as many as 90,000 refugees and displaced persons. Today those still here are fighting for their lives, caught between “donor fatigue” and a struggle over limited resources with their Turkana neighbors that is increasingly violent.

Aid agencies have cut food rations, in response to the global recession, while persistent drought has strained resources for all the inhabitants of this semi-arid region.

Ernest Waititu reports on the consequences: conflicts over water, food and jobs as Turkana people look increasingly to the camp for the resources they need to survive. With the region awash in illegally traded guns the government of Kenya has imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew on the camp and surrounding area.

But even as the resources in the camp dwindle and conflict grows, Kakuma is still home to more than 42,000 refugees. The numbers are rising following an influx of refugees from war-torn Somalia, who are now finding their way to Kakuma from the overflowing Dadaab Refugee Camp.

Ernest Waititu

Ernest Waititu, a native of Kenya, is founder and editor of Afrikanews.org. Waititu has worked as a journalist for the last ten years. He interned with the CNN International Desk in Atlanta and has written for The Standard, The Nation and The EastAfrican in Kenya....

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