In order to determine which refugee groups are of interest to the United States and should be considered for resettlement here, the Department of State relies on recommendations from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). If intensive investigation is needed, the process of referring the group for resettlement will include a field study conducted by a targeted response team consisting of representatives from the Departments of State and Homeland Security, UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), non-governmental organizations and other players as appropriate.
A May 31–June 8 trip to refugee camps in Kenya and Tanzania was the first targeted response team in which LIRS has participated. The team’s objective was to perform a detailed investigation—examining camp registration data, assessing any fraud concerns, determining security levels, and exploring possibilities for moving refugees to a safe site for processing—and to report findings and make recommendations regarding resettlement.
In Kenya, we focused on the Dadaab camps. Located in a semi-arid desert region, these camps are home to nearly 140,000 refugees, of whom 97.5 percent are Somali. They have been there for years with minimal access to rights and no access to a meaningful solution. The team observed UNHCR and the Kenyan National Registration Bureau working to verify the refugees’ data, and IOM conducting medical exams for 2,329 Somali Benadir refugees screened last year for possible U.S. resettlement. Although UNHCR promotes voluntary repatriation, the fluid political situation in Somalia hinders large-scale repatriation, so other solutions are being explored.
From Kenya we traveled to Tanzania where we visited the refugee camps in Ngara, Kibondo and Kasulu. In Tanzania there are over 402,000 refugees, including 250,000 Burundians, in 11 camps on the country’s western border. Widespread ethnic violence in Burundi in 1972 forced many from the Hutu ethnic group to flee their homes as the Burundian government seized their land and homes. They have lived outside their country for 32 years—one of the most protracted refugee situations in the world. Those who fled as children and those born in the Tanzanian camps make up more than 70 percent of this group. At the time of our visit, UNHCR was conducting registration in all camps in order to verify data and to capture photographs of all refugees.
A refugee I met in Dadaab expressed powerfully the mixed hope and anxiety experienced by so many refugees in protracted camp situations: “I long to return home,” said the man, who had lived in the camp for 14 years. “My hope is that the new Somali government will restore peace in my motherland. A bad government is better than nothing.” And he added, “It looks like the donors are tired of Somalia—we have been here too long.”
I was grateful for the opportunity to participate in LIRS’s first targeted response team trip, and to witness first-hand the work Lutheran World Federation and its national partners are doing among refugees in Kenya and Tanzania. Missions such as this help LIRS fulfill our goal of serving and advocating for the most vulnerable. By bringing our service expertise to the table, LIRS also helps U.S. and international decision-makers with their important work on behalf of refugees.
|
 |
Click on each image below to open larger version in new window.
|
