Refugee-camp survivor now helping others

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2011 (4664 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IMAGES of the hundreds of thousands of people starving in the world’s largest refugee camp in the Horn of Africa hit too close to home for Omar Adan.

“I was in Dadaab,” said the Winnipeg social worker. “It really brings back lots of memories, seeing that it’s happening again.”

At the age of 10, he was a refugee from Somalia who stayed at the same overcrowded camp in northeast Kenya making headlines now.

“It was really bad. There was no water, no food and nothing else,” he said of the refugee camp 21 years ago.

“It was very hard, especially at the beginning. You’re lining up for water for hours. There was no security. The only agency there was the Red Cross.”

Now there are more agencies and many more refugees flooding into the Dadaab camp — close to half a million have arrived at the camp meant for 90,000.

“I stopped watching the news a long time ago,” said the father of three children under 12. “It’s not fair. It makes you sad.”

He’s not looking, but he’s not turning a blind eye, either.

After Friday prayers, he and members of the Somali community are collecting donations at Winnipeg mosques for the victims of what’s now being called a famine in east Africa.

The money will go to Human Concern International, a registered charity in Canada, to help the victims of drought. Adan said local Somalis are also planning a public fundraiser next month and hope Manitobans will support the cause.

There are close to 1,000 Somalis living in Winnipeg, and many of them came from refugee camps in East Africa, said Adan.

“The problem at a refugee camp is you’re coming to a nowhere land,” said Adan. “You’re starting from dry land where there’s nothing… It’s not an easy place,” he said of the refugee camp close to the Somalia border. “In Kenya, people from Somalia can’t leave the refugee camp. There’s no place for them to work or make money.”

His family left the refugee camp when they were sponsored by relatives to come to Canada.

For many kids who were there with Aden, that hot, crowded “nowhere land” was the end of the road.

“The kids who went there have children of their own now. There is no hope for them to get out of there at all.”

Adan said he’s grateful for federal aid to help ease the suffering. “I’m happy the Canadian government will help. But there needs to be a long-term plan.

“We Somalis have to take responsibility,” he said. “No one can help us till we help ourselves.” The chaos and fighting in that failed state is no quick fix, he said.

Famine is the immediate crisis and it can’t be solved by Somalis alone, he said.

“Right now, I think our No. 1 concern is there is a lot of children dying every day.”

Families have been forced out of their homes by famine and fighting that are out of their control.

“They’ve done nothing wrong,” said Adan. “It’s the guys fighting for control. Whatever their ideology or religious beliefs are, the people suffering are the women and children.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca