By Jacob Onuha Nelson
Refugees in Kakuma Camp, in Kenya, have expressed dissatisfaction with the UN agency’s categorizing policy in distributing rations.
In an exclusive interview with this outlet, Kayzon Tumbo Malone, a resident of Kakuma One, said in the new policy of categorizing families frustrates refugees.
According to Tumbo, the families are categorized and given size card ratio. The cards rage from one, two, three, and four. He added that food shortage in the camps has increased malnutrition, desperation, and financiais crises.
Tumbo explained that category One stands for people with special needs, and they receive one thousand five hundred Kenya shillings per individual, every month, equivalent to food rations.
Category two is for families whose size card ratio gets forty percent of food stuff at the distribution center.
Category three will be people who have got support from relatives who are working class and have families abroad.
Lastly, people under category four will be given money to start their own business; when the money gets finished or the business collapses, they find their own means of fending for their lives.
“You know, some people are still crying out there because they’ve been fixed in a wrong category. They are crying out to UNHCR to help them or to put them in category where they belong,” Tumbo said.
He claimed that in the categories, there are challenges that people face in financial circumstances.
“The cash that they are giving is very small. It cannot even feed the whole family from the first day of the week or of the month to the end,” Tumbo stated.
Meanwhile, Miltan Xavi Peter, another resident of Kalobeyei village, one camp, narrated that the situation is dire and alarming.
“It’s really challenging. I don’t know how the people will survive. And some people even are crying; they want to go back to their respective countries,” Xavi asked.
Xavi said residents are disappointed with the situation at large.
“I feel like sympathizing with the situation that is happening right now. I am really crying, but no one is hearing their cry,” Xavi asserted.
For his part, Simon Afore, the community leader in Kakuma Two, urged the government of South Sudan to intervene in the situation in the camp.
“I call upon the government to provide support and also to stabilize the situation,” Afore noted.
As said before, our hope is for both governments of Kenya and South Sudan to discuss the dire situation if possible.
“I want the government to hear about the situation we are enduring as citizens,” Afore noted.