Refugees Die in Camp

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday July 05, 2002 00:17 by Cait

Health Conditions Continue To Worsen By The Day Without Hope For Reprieve. The humanitarian community has expressed concern over the worsening health conditions for Somali refugees camped at Mandera, in northern Kenya, following the death of 20 people due to cholera. Unconfirmed figures indicate that the number of the refugees on Kenya side could be as large as 20,000 people.

But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) said on May 28 that the health of about 5,000 people camped at a point known as Border Point 1, was a cause of concern as they faced the threat of diarrhoea.

The closeness to the border where gun-fire is still raging has made it difficult for humanitarian agencies to mount an effective assistance programmes or supplementary therapeutic feeding. The UNHCR said the refugees had received no food since the influx began about two weeks ago.

Plans to distribute food in the camp were recently disrupted when gunfire broke out across the border.

The refugees camped in Mandera in April and May after inter-clan fighting broke out in the Somali town of Bullahawa, Gedo region, near Kenyan border.

The camp is barely 500 metres from the border between Kenya and Somalia, and within range of gunfire in the Bullahawa town. Gunfire last week killed four of the refugees.

In the past two days, according to the UN agency, 70 children were admitted in a Mandera hospital with severe mal-nutrition and diarrhoea, prompting an outcry from the local people that the refugees be re-located to the established refugee camps.

"The refugees in the camp show signs of starvation and malnutrition. The outbreak of diarrhoea in the second week of May led to three deaths," said the UNHCR communications officer, Emanuel Nyabera.

Reports from here have indicated that some of the refugees have been forced to slaughter their animals to sell to the hungry and malnourished people.

An estimated 5,000 refugees were said to have crossed back to Somalia and camped at an area called Balet Amin, not far from the Kenyan border.

"If the fighting breaks out gain across the border, lives will be lost as it happened two weeks ago," said the UNHCR Representative in Kenya, George Okoth -Obbo.