Kakuma (Kenya): more than 450 Sudanese refugees return to the camp

Sudanese refugees had fled clashes between two Sudanese communities that occurred in Kalobeyei last July. Several of them had found refuge at the Kakuma camp, others in villages surrounding the camp. The UNHCR had to get involved to reassure them. SOS Médias Info

Some were taken in UNHCR trucks, others in private buses or on foot. These are Sudanese from the “Nuer” and “Anuak” communities.

At the origin of their flight towards the Kakuma camp and the surrounding Kenyan villages, a fight and conflicts which arose between these two large South Sudanese communities in Kalobeyei, an expansion of the Kakuma camp in the northwest of Kenya.

The conflict left at least ten refugees dead, including four Burundians, all killed in one week at the beginning of last July. Residents were afraid of reprisals and preferred to “run away”. Most of them are young people, women and children. And since the beginning of August, the UNHCR and the Kakuma camp administration have carried out their “repatriation”.

“The whole village 1 was almost empty, schools, churches and shops closed, because there was no one left,” says a Burundian witness from village 2.

It is this village which was chosen by the UNHCR for the launch of the said internal “repatriation”.

“More than 300 Sudanese were then resettled in their homes. The UNHCR organized several calming, awareness-raising and moralizing sessions so that peace reigns,” indicate local leaders (Bloc leaders).

Other meetings were held between leaders of the two communities so that they could “carry a message of peace”.

“For the moment, calm reigns and no one attacks their neighbor. The UNHCR, the administration and the police did well, otherwise, the camp would turn into a battlefield,” assure Burundians and Congolese who had sided with the “Anuak” to fight their “eternal enemies that are the Nuer.

Several of the Nuer, pejoratively called “great lakes populations” had also set sail.

“Who could not be afraid when some corpses were found, either in the camp or outside the camp and the conflict had turned into small ambushes on roads leading to Kalobeyei! », Indicates a Burundian community leader from Kakuma.

The refugees welcome the action taken by the UNHCR, the police and the administration of the Kakuma camp to ease tensions.

“The police have sworn to redouble their efforts, control the situation and exemplarily punish anyone who provokes violence again,” refugees said.

However, refugees are demanding investigations to punish the culprits and deter this type of criminal act.

At the Kakuma camp, which shelters more than 200,000 refugees, including more than 25,000 Burundians, crime has become commonplace and the occupants denounce what they describe as “worrying laxity, or even complicity by law enforcement.”