Kenya - Temporary Camps for Displaced Persons
Post-election and, subsequently, inter-community violence has prompted major population movements, with people settling, temporarily, in multiple sites in western Kenya. To address this emergency, mobile teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are providing ad hoc assistance at various sites and in the region's hospitals.
In Naivasha, in western Kenya, many camp residents began to leave in early February. Families began clearing out of the site near the prison. When inter-community violence flared in the town on 26 and 27 January, they had taken refuge in this unusual location. A mobile MSF team arrived immediately to deal with the emergency.
 |
MSF mobile teams have been setting up water supplies and sanitation facilities, providing primary health care services and vaccinating children against measles in western Kenya.
© Brigitte Breuillac / MSF |
"On the prison site, approximately 3,000 displaced persons set up around the buildings used by the people working in the prison," says Dr. Peter Reynaud, the field coordinator. "There were no latrines, showers, or water." The team built showers, dug latrines, arranged for a 100,000-litre tank truck to deliver water daily and treated AIDS patients with tuberculosis.
Approximately 2,000 additional displaced persons also took shelter at a Naivasha police station. "The reason is obvious," Dr. Reynaud says. "People felt protected because the police are right there, just as they were reassured by the presence of prison guards at the other site." However, neither site was intended for such large numbers of people. The police station had one water tap for a dozen officers and children played alongside the wrecked cars left near the buildings.
The MSF mobile team provided water and sanitation and distributed blankets and soap at the site. Team members also treated nearly 400 patients suffering primarily from respiratory infections (the nights are cold) and, in some cases, diarrhoea. When local organisations started meeting the needs, MSF ceased its activities. It has responded to the emergency.
People heading to their homeland
"Many people left fairly quickly," Dr. Reynaud said. "Hundreds left every day. People paid their own way -travelling by bus, truck, or car - to get to their homeland, to the western part of the country." "Homeland"-this leitmotiv could refer to the region where their parents or grandparents still live or the place where their ancestors were from, where they have never lived and do not know.
Several days later, some 200 kilometres away, in Kericho, western Kenya, other families left an improvised camp in the park next to the local church to get to their homeland. They, too, had fled inter-community violence that broke out in the town in late January, wounding more than 20 people. Along the road bordering the displaced persons' camp, they loaded bundles, dishes and furniture onto trucks, preparing to leave. Charles was waiting, too. He had already sent his wife and children to family in Nakuru and had just gathered the inventory from his clothing store in Kericho, the city where he has lived for nearly 13 years.
The MSF team gave the city hospital, and several other hospitals in the province, wound kits that include bandages and antibiotics. The team also provided logistical assistance and distributed blankets and cooking utensils at the two displaced persons' sites near the church and next to the police station, housing 1500 and 500 people, respectively. The team also vaccinated approximately 150 children against measles, a potentially epidemic illness that can spread easily in this kind of situation. The team is still working in Kericho because although many people have left, the camps are not empty as residents of nearby villages have arrived in the meantime.
Responsive and mobile
For more than a month, this mobile team has also been using Kericho as its base for trips to other displaced persons' sites, including in Londiani and Kipkelion. This emergency activity has involved setting up a water supply and sanitation facilities, providing primary health care services, vaccinating children against measles and ensuring that HIV and tuberculosis patients can continue their treatment.
"Our teams are particularly focused on providing ad hoc assistance on an occasional basis," says Filipe Ribero, MSF's Kenya emergency coordinator. "We chose to be as responsive and mobile as possible." The number of displaced persons at the sites is now dropping dramatically, with only 350 people remaining in Kipkelion. The Naivasha camp set up near the prison is now empty. Its occupants have left for Nyanza, to the west.
"We are observing major population movements from east to west and west to east, as people who belong to certain ethnic groups head in one direction and those from other groups head in the opposite," Ribero says. The displaced persons' sites appear temporary. The only exceptions are a few organised camps set up by the Kenyan Red Cross. Two camps in Naivasha, one near the stadium and the other located 5 kilometres from the town at a flower farm-house, house displaced persons from other provinces.
Because many scattered temporary sites remain, MSF teams continue to monitor the situation so that they can take action if necessary. However, "in this context, the problem for MSF and other humanitarian organisations is to determine to which extent we make improvements at the sites, knowing that the displaced persons do not intend to stay," Ribero says.
» Read
other articles on Kenya
» Read other field updates |
