Dear KANERE readers here and abroad,
First and foremost, I want to thank you for your loyalty to both exile journalists in KANERE and our supporters who find our work meaningful out of Kakuma refugee camp.
The past four months were generally calm inside the camp though a few cases of insecurity incidents have been reported in parts of the settlement. However, life was marked by different phenomena like natural calamities. The heavy downpour between the months of March to May caused flooding that resulted in five refugees and two members of the host community being drowned. March to June received plenty of rain, it was mild, and it was cold, warm and flooding. That is all about the weather.
In this edition: The influx of new arrivals to Kakuma following the communal conflicts, bombings and border violence for Sudanese. For Somalis violent conflicts, suicide attacks and inhuman crimes committed by Al-Shabaab insurgents are still forcing thousands of children and women into the 20 year old camp of Dadaab which now holds the shameful name of being the biggest refugee camp in the world. Dadaab Camp explosions and kidnappings are continuing and have paralyzed the humanitarian life saving operation in that camp which holds an estimated population of 500,000 refugees by mid July. In Turkana County the host communities saw a new dawn of hope after oil was discovered in the region. Several other stories constituted our publication. Yet again thousands of the camp residents turned up to commemorate the World Refugee Day in Kakuma camp this year.
KANERE has been running on a voluntary basis and amicable funding for the continuation of a refugee voice out of Kakuma has been stonewalled. As you can imagine, volunteers are working without payment. However, we feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to continue publishing for our audience – a role represented by the reporting project. We all try to do the best we can with no resources. As this situation is critical for the paper, we appeal to those who better understand KANERE to take a step forward in support of the refugee voice.
I’m happy to say that we appreciate the legal back up from press freedom and defenders’ groups. We seek potential supporters who will always stand with us, and should continue to be authentic in times ahead.
We direct and advise our audience and readers at internship to visit our archives online to find past and current editions of KANERE. And we remain as ever focused on balanced, independent and quality reporting.
I welcome any and all suggestions, critical questions or criticisms in relation to KANERE’s work. We also invite news tips from camp residents, members of the host community, humanitarian officials and our readers from abroad.
Thank you very much for reading,
Sincerely,
KANERE editor in chief