Thousands of refugees clashed with police in a Kenyan refugee camp this week after receiving news that their food allocations would be cut because of funding problems.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, confirmed that four refugees and a local government official had been injured when police intervened to stop the protesters at the Kakuma refugee camp on Monday.
Those living in the camp had received a message from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) confirming that allocations would be cut to 40% of the basic minimum ration.
The camp has 300,000 refugees, mostly from South Sudan but also from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia.
Aid budgets have been stretched for several years, with the WFP having to cut rations in other emergency zones, but they have been hit further by President Donald Trump’s freeze on US aid spending, which provided more than half of WFP’s funding of $9.7bn (£7.5bn) in 2024.
Protesters in the camp held up signs calling for more food and carried empty cooking pots.
One refugee, Andrew Dafir, received a text telling him his monthly ration would drop from 4kg to 3kg of cereals, while cooking oil and beans had been cut completely, said: “I feel neglected and lost because I have no other way to survive.”
Dafir said what they had been receiving was already very limited after repeated cuts, with the full ration being more than 7kg a month for each person.
A cash payment given to the refugees has increased, from 650 Kenyan shillings (about £4) to 820 shillings to replace the beans and oil no longer included in the rations, but Dafir said the total payment covered barely enough food for a day, let alone for a month.
He said the new level of food aid was not enough to live on, especially for those who did not have any other income to supplement their rations.
He shared a video of scores of people running away from teargas and what sounded like bullets being fired, with a boy being carried away with an injury to his stomach. Dafir said one of his friends was among those hurt.
“I lost my voice, I was so scared,” said Dafir. “We’re being forced to be silent; it seems like no wants to listen to us.”
A group of young refugees based in the camp, Youth Voices in Kakuma, said protesters had spent hours outside the UNHCR offices but when no one came out to listen to their concerns some began trying to climb the fence, prompting the police to step in.
A Kakuma resident named Blax Von, who uploaded videos of the protest on to TikTok, said the tensions had been building for several months, with water supplies being reduced, cash support payments slashed, and refugees required to pay their children’s school fees.
Many of the protesters carried empty pots, while others held signs questioning whether 3kg of cereals was enough. “This is the container they are now using to measure beans and oil and the other one for rice. And this is equivalent for one month for your food,” a South Sudanese refugee, holding an empty cooking pot, told the Associated Press.
“Assume you don’t have another income, it’s only this. Is this enough for you?”
UNHCR said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” about the impact of the cuts. It said “government security personnel in Kakuma intervened to contain the situation. Fortunately, there was no loss of life.
“However, at least four refugees and one local government official sustained injuries. UNHCR cannot confirm the use of live rounds during the demonstrations.”
The Social Justice Centre Working Group, a Kenyan civil society organisation, said: “Brutalising those who flee war, persecution and hunger instead of addressing their cries for food and water is the height of state-sponsored cruelty.”
Kipchumba Murkomen, the cabinet secretary at Kenya’s interior ministry, said on Tuesday that the recent aid cuts had had a “sudden and severe” impact on Kenya’s ability to host 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers.
“With the cut in funding for humanitarian assistance programmes by the developed world, the socioeconomic impact on our country will be unbearable. And yet to turn our backs on the most vulnerable people runs counter to our belief in shared humanity. It’s therefore incumbent on developed countries to shoulder the financial burden as we do our bit,” said Murkomen.
Source: theguardian.com
