Category: Quotes of the Month

2010-11 Winter Quarterly Issue

“My vote is to separate so that South Sudan can stand and rule itself. This is where I belong since before the coming of the Arabs. I better go back to cultivate crops than live this life at the camp.”

– T.M.G., on the South Sudan Referendum

“I ask and encourage our people to come out and vote. It’s clear to say that history has shown the New Identity. We don’t hate the North. We can take the control of our Nation. We can make, break and divide our country. ”

-Philip Deng, SSRC Representative in Kenya on the South Sudan Referendum

“It is not acceptable to kill a friend just for single quarrels. Young men in these communities walk with short knives in their pockets.”

-Refugee community leader on new forms of violence in Kakuma Camp

 

“We have many disabled and elderly people in this community, but they were not even counted yet. Some of them do not even know their own registration numbers scheduled by the UNHCR on the notice boards.”

-Refugee leader in Zone Five, on problems with the UNHCR verification exercise

“One died and five were injured, but I cannot give names of the passengers encountered in the accident without authorization from the IRC Program Coordinator.”

-IRC National staff during an interview over fatal road accident

“We could not manage to put out the fire. We had plenty of water flowing for four hours over the normal circumstances, and we thank the LWF water department.”

-A.A., eye witness to the blaze that consumed a neighborhood group in Kakuma One

“We need scholarship, but not our location to be known to the Ethiopian Embassy. I wonder if that is what UNHCR should do.”

-Ethiopian Oromo student regarding a scholarship opportunity with mixed benefits

“I just feel so much emptiness in my arms where my child should belong. In every dark night I recall when my son was killed.”

-Mother of a 12-day-old baby boy killed by a gunshot

“This change in culture and behavior will develop into mental stress in almost all refugees, but the degrees of stress will differ according to each and every individual. It’s an undeniable fact that you could really develop real stress even if you consider that you are a free person or free of this problem.”

-T., writing on the experience of being a refugee

“I have family and friends abroad and I still cannot answer any calls that are strange, because I cannot risk dying simply.”

– M., a Somali living in Kakuma One worried about the killer calls hoax

“We find our jerrycans kicked off the water taps, stones thrown at us frequently, and we even don’t sleep in our house some nights due to too much fear and frustration.”

– A., mother of an 8-year-old boy involved in a child abuse case

“This solar lighting project was first initiated in Kakuma so that determination can be made if such initiatives can be established in other refugee camps.”

-Marge Gorge, of UNHCR EDP–Kakuma, on a new lighting project in the camp

“It is good to have lights through the whole night in the camp, especially in the areas which gunmen use when they attack and kill refugees.”

-A Rwandan-Sudanese refugee on the long-awaited lights to be installed in the camp

“The Refugee Consortium of Kenya is doing a good job helping refugees and asylum seekers on legal protection. The Department of Refugee Affairs is showing low performance in being firm and independent. The decision-making body is not fair and just in line to the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) and Resettlement, and that is why the feedback takes so long. The security is still challenging.”

– M., a case worker with LWF commenting on the Community Talking Point

“I am traveling. None should open my store and interfere. Let me be responsible for it .I have committed a crime and only allow the police to open the doors.”

-Y.M., A murderer speaking on the phone to his neighbour fleeing to away after the crime

“We are shocked by the injuries caused by her husband. Waral was also taken to imprisonment for the crimes committed and failing to disclose the solid cause of the chaos.”

Sudanese Equatorial Deputy Chairman speaking on the violence caused by his community member

“I was raped before the eyes of my own children and husband, I don’t even see any meaning of life anymore.”

-H.W. A victim complaining on the recent insecurity situation in the camp

“The results of the survey were not ready yet and we can’t give information until we are granted permission from the Nairobi Office.”

National Programme Officer of mix me in WFP to KANERE reporter during the Mix Me end line survey.

“He was taken to the surgical toile on Wednesday the 19^th and discharged 23^rd May 28, 2010 from IRC Refugee hospital.”

-M.B. IRC nurse who was taking care of a 14 year old boy in the isolation ward at Refugee main

Hospital on the recent insecurity in the camp

“Refugees are in Kenya since before the independent and we welcome and cater for their security. As we are reassuring the protection and security for the refugees. We have opened police posts and there are patrols so we have peaceful environment.”

A Kenya Government Official makes a speech on the world refugee day at Kakuma

“I fear the man who shot me can still find me in the streets of Nairobi.”

-M.M., Darfurian refugee who fled insecurity in Kakuma Camp and is now in Nairobi

“The time to act is now. People won’t enjoy alcohol when our people are dying. After all, everybody is at risk.”

– Sudanese group leader on the recent cholera outbreak that caused public bars and eateries to close

“How it is great to see yourself out of the invisible enclosure made with barbed wire. How would feel if you are kept in such a place where you can’t see exactly where the outlet is?”

-Refugee poet in “Illusion”

“Why is it that instead of the UN getting tough on the promoters of wars like arms manufacturers and suppliers, it concentrates on their victims, the refugees? Why is it that the UN is less interested in dealing with the causes of wars than with their effects?”

-Refugee journalist on the question of the UN’s efficacy

“I have a good message to take back to Nairobi. The conditions are not favorable and there is pain, but I can also see there’s hope.”

-Mr. Jackson Wachira, the KISWCD principal, in a graduation ceremony speech at Kakuma

“When it comes to the issue of shelter, it was good at Daadab, but here [in Kakuma] we couldn’t even turn up. So we exchange our food rations for poles so as to erect tents with the materials.”

-N.R., a Somali new arrival to Kakuma and mother of three children

“In the refugee camps I visited in Tanzania and Kenya, refugees interviewed strongly felt that their rights and freedoms were not being fully upheld by UNHCR. Refugees organizing themselves into associations or free press often face hostility far greater from UNHCR staff than sometimes government organs.”

-Zachary Lomo, “Essay on Refugee Human Rights”

“We demand for justice and democratic governance, as decisions are only made half-way since the refugees are not involved in the policy and laws that govern refugees in Kakuma.”

-Refugee community leader / “Democracy and Refugee Participation in Decision-Making”

“Everyone talks about rights or human rights, but there is nothing like rights I got in Kakuma.”

-Ethiopian rejected asylum seeker / “Refugee Status Determination: Facing Rejection”

“Can WFP change this MixMe into locally produced food rather than bringing externally produced chemicals that are harmful to refugees, who are used as laboratory animals for someone’s university research?”

-Anonymous refugee / “Community Talking Point: Mix Me”

“UNHCR without refugees is like a mirror without eyes—impossible. But refugees without UNHCR is possible, if they are given freedom. Refugees have potential to do things. But it’s not tested. If refugees are not given a chance and freedom, they cannot know their capacity and the value of life.”

-Ethiopian refugee / “Refugee Life at An Angle”

“Life is a circular motion, which rotates on its own axis with every individual. Through it, there’s happiness, sadness, love, peace, conflict, and many good and bad fortunes. One can have one day of life and die, others may have hundreds of years of age, but still they make a full circle. The difference is only the size of the radius.”

-Ugandan refugee / “Refugee Life at An Angle”

“Do all the people who work with and amongst refugees and asylum seekers believe in their rights, and particularly the right to a free press?”

-Dr. Ekuru Aukot / “Who believes in the rights of Immigrants? Do refugees in Kenya have the right to free press?”

“My heart is full of sorrow. I feel so sad to see how long it takes to be accepted as a refugee while suffering in the camp.”

-A Congolese asylum seeker / “Refugee Status Determination: Justice Delayed is…Typical?”

“This is a frightening situation, if not a disaster.”

-A caseworker on the case of a suicidal single mother / “UNHCR Field Posts Aim to Protect Refugees”

“The UNHCR knows us not by name, but by number.”

-An Ethiopian refugee who has tired of being repeatedly counted / “Refugee Headcount Begins”

“I believe that the world’s refugee camps could produce the next generation of great artists.”

-Sally Lincoln, American artist visiting Kakuma Refugee Camp / “An Artist’s View of Kakuma Refugee Camp”

Volume 1, Issue 2 / January 2009

“When others control the voice [of refugees], is it any wonder that the appeal is almost always for more aid and not for more rights?”

-Merrill Smith, of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and  Immigrants/ “Speaking Out on Warehousing: 3 Questions for Merrill Smith”

“One way to begin to address the evils of [refugee] camps is to create feedback mechanisms…If a free press spreads among the hundreds of camps in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and appears on the World Wide Web, indeed a feedback mechanism will have been established.”

-Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond, refugee rights advocate and founder of the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre / “Speaking for Refugees or Refugees Speaking for Themselves”

“Refugees are human beings. Human rights are the things that belong to us and no one can take them away.”

-A refugee incentive worker on wage inequalities / “Are Refugees Entitled to Equal Pay for Equal Work?”

“[Refugees] have a right to information and transparency from UNHCR and partner staff… A rights-based approach requires organizations to support people to demand what they are entitled to.”

-UNHCR, in A Community-Based Approach in UNHCR Operations / “KANERE Celebrates One Year of UNHCR’s Rights- and Community-Based Approach”