Thursday, March 8, 2012

Mounting Tensions at Dadaab Refugee Camp

William Garvelink, senior adviser with the Project on U.S. Leadership in Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington and Farha Tahir, program coordinator and research associate at CSIS, wrote on 1 March 2012 an excellent, albeit alarming, account of the situation in the Somali refugee camp at Dadaab just inside the Kenya border.

They report that mounting tensions there have escalated to explosive levels in recent weeks. Sexual violence has become endemic, police abuse and inaction commonplace, and al-Shabaab infiltration rising. They suggest only a coordinated response from UNHCR, the Kenyan government and international community can prevent the situation from erupting into deadly violence. You can read their analysis here.