Kenya’s pledge to integrate refugees with locals meets complaints, hostility

At Kakuma Refugee Camp, one of the largest in Kenya with some 295,000 people, refugees have been pouring on the streets to complain that the programme could make their lives harder, or, worse, erode their culture.

Kakuma was one of the camps envisaged to be turned into a municipality, and be a model on how refugee camps, often crowded and disorderly, could transit to organised towns.

There, a project called the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Programme (KISEDP) was to shift the shanties to some kind of urban town.

In exchange for freedoms and the market economy, the usual handouts given to refugees such as food rations, free medical clinics and schooling would gradually be ended.

That has been the first source of trouble. Since last week, refugee communities, have been protesting, arguing the Shirika Plan will force them into compulsory citizenship while robbing them of these privileges.

As much as the main goal of the plan is to foster self-reliance by promising a shift from the traditional humanitarian approach to a development-oriented strategy, the refugees said they haven't been allowed to scrutinise the plan.

Rita Namrembe, a refugee community leader, says that since the push for integration began, there have been reduced food rations and water, and critical services like health are sub-standard, with many youth resorting to crime to earn a living due to a lack of jobs.

"We are used to being given everything by UNHCR and its partners. The integration will mean that we are left on our own. Where will we get jobs when Kenyans aren't equally employed?" Ms Namrembe pauses.

The refugees say they fear losing their identity.

“At the moment as refugees in Kakuma, we don't want integration. We should first be assured of jobs and access to basic services because as it is we will be left to starve to death," Abdul Kiza, a refugee says.

In most cases, the complaints raised by refugees are both problems anticipated by policymakers, but also emblematic of the information gap on the programme. For example, the Shirika Plan proposes issuance of special Kenyan IDs to refugees, specifically showing bearers as refugees, not as Kenyans.

Their rights and privileges will also be expanded but they may be limited still. For example, a refugee will lose their IDs if they go back to their homeland or gain another country’s passport. They may, however, gradually become citizens once they qualify.

It is not just the refugees afraid of the new plan. Local host communities argue it favours refugees because they could become eligible for scarce jobs in the area.

"The lion's share of the services rendered are refugees-inclined. From education, food distribution, capacity building and many other essential training for human development," Mr John Ekidor, a local community leader, says.

For the locals, they, first, want inclusive and intensive public participation.

They also feared that integration could bring a ‘foreign culture’ in Turkana, diluting the local way of life.

Back in October last year, when President Ruto launched the plan, he spoke of giving those born on Kenyan soil a chance out of the camps.

The plan targets Kakuma and Dadaab camps, seeking to provide what Kenya terms as ‘sustainable solutions’ to refugee hosting, while also respecting international obligations on refugees.

Edward Chebari, the Kakuma Refugee Camp manager, told The EastAfrican that partners will talk to refugees to address their complaints. It is not all gloom though.

So far, under the plan, Kakuma municipality has benefited from the first-ever tarmac road since the camp was established in 1992.

Deah Africk, an Ethiopian businessman who arrived at Kakuma in 2013, says the seven-kilometre Jomo Kenyatta Road to Kalobeyei village, was in such a bad state that ambulances or police vehicles responding to emergencies had trouble, especially during the rainy season to reach people in need.