Sudanese refugees desperate to go home, but fear chaos
By Ulrike Koltermann
KAKUMA, Kenya, Dec 12, 2003 (dpa) — “We want to go home! We can’t stay here any longer. We are fed up of this refugee camp!”
The gaunt, grey-haired Sudanese man reads aloud a handwritten note. He turns to a German minister whose name he can hardly pronounce and is glad that someone, anyone is listening to him.
Foreign politicians rarely venture into Kakuma’s refugee camp in barren, northern Kenya on the border to Sudan.
There, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is currently preparing for the return of Sudanese refugees – one of the biggest repatriation programmes ever undertaken.
The old man points out though, that: “We can only go when real peace has been achieved.”
Kerstin Mueller, Minister of State in the German Foreign Office, said during a visit to Kenya at the beginning of December that a peace treaty would be in Germany’s interests.
“Failing countries often become a breeding ground for international terrorism”, she said, adding “The chances for peace have never been greater than now”, after talks with representatives of the warring parties.
The 20-year civil war between the Islamic regime in Khartoum and the Christian-animistic south, rich in raw materials, is one of the longest-running conflicts on the African continent.
If Sudan’s vice president, Ali Osman Taha, and rebel leader John Garang should agree to a peace treaty, Germany would provide 80 million euros (96 million dollars) in reconstruction aid.
“We speak of ‘building again’ because there is nothing left to reconstruct in southern Sudan. We have to start at the very beginning”, Mueller said. A total of 570,000 Sudanese have fled abroad, 60,000 of whom live in Kenya.
Sudan also has 3 to 4 million internal refugees for whom no-one feels responsible.
Since 1992, international aid has catered to all the refugees’ needs. Kenya does not allow them leave the camp or work. Food is often scarce and many children suffer from undernourishment.
“We are still better off here than if we returned to that chaos”, said one refugee in Kakuma. Others dream of a new life in the U.S. or Canada.
But after a fraud scandal among the authorities and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., the chances of resettling in North America are slim.
The UNHCR expects to return 10,000 refugees to southern Sudan, a year after the conclusion of a peace treaty.
“That will be on a voluntary basis”, said George Okoth-Obbo, the head of UNHCR in Kenya.
“A treaty does not mean peace”, he said. In the south, battles between government forces and rebels have long since been overshadowed by conflicts between several, rival splinter groups of rebels.
“Even if everything goes well, it could still be four years before the camp in Kakuma could be dissolved”, said Okoth-Obbo.
Nothing will change quickly for most of Kakuma’s residents. They continue to live in their clay huts with their corrugated iron roofs in kilometre-long rows. They still queue twice a month for food rations providing them with their only daily meal.
More and more children are born into such a fate in Kakuma. It will be a long, long time before they are ever brought back to Sudan.