I am saddened by the current take of things as it is happening in Uganda with regard to the asylees mostly the ones from non-violent countries, including Kenya. As an asylee in Uganda, i have experienced most of this mistreatment and trumpling of human rights from none other than the government through the Office of the Prime Minister and the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR.
I believe i am speaking this on behalf of many refugees and asylees in Uganda. The first complaint is that the process of getting identified and accepted as a refugee is rather slow and painstaking. You have to move to more than three offices for this to be a reality. First you are supposed to go to a police station to register as an alien. Good! Then you are sent to an NGO working with the UNHCR for another interview. Another good! And then to the Directorate of Refugees in the Office of the Prime Minister...............the bureaucracy starts getting boring until they send you to the Special Branch, good again, but as if you are a criminal.
That not withstanding, one is supposed to wait for the his or her refugee status for over six months, sometimes three years, and sometimes for ever. It is one pathetic situation. Finally, you are requested to go to a settlement camp as your case awaits determination by Refugee Elligibility Committee (What's that?). Once there, they forget you until one day God intervenes. Life in the settlement camps is nowhere near any good. In fact, life there is worse than one can imagine. Before you get there they promise you heavens; education, shelter, basic assistance, etc. but once on the ground nothing seems forthcoming, not even the forthright humanitarian assistance like food and shelter from torrid climate in most of the camps.
I believe i am speaking this on behalf of many refugees and asylees in Uganda. The first complaint is that the process of getting identified and accepted as a refugee is rather slow and painstaking. You have to move to more than three offices for this to be a reality. First you are supposed to go to a police station to register as an alien. Good! Then you are sent to an NGO working with the UNHCR for another interview. Another good! And then to the Directorate of Refugees in the Office of the Prime Minister...............the bureaucracy starts getting boring until they send you to the Special Branch, good again, but as if you are a criminal.
That not withstanding, one is supposed to wait for the his or her refugee status for over six months, sometimes three years, and sometimes for ever. It is one pathetic situation. Finally, you are requested to go to a settlement camp as your case awaits determination by Refugee Elligibility Committee (What's that?). Once there, they forget you until one day God intervenes. Life in the settlement camps is nowhere near any good. In fact, life there is worse than one can imagine. Before you get there they promise you heavens; education, shelter, basic assistance, etc. but once on the ground nothing seems forthcoming, not even the forthright humanitarian assistance like food and shelter from torrid climate in most of the camps.
I found it a joke that without any other form of complementing food supply, a new refugee or an asylee is given thirteen kilos of unground sorghum and one and a half kilo of beans to be consumed in course of 30 days, sometimes even 40 days. This with no utensils for cooking from and definately no salt, no water, nothing! It is unimaginable but that is the life in the camp. It is not a wonder that many young people in the camps have decided to give up on living, resulting to free sex and alarming drug abuse.
Well, there is some hope anyway, if you have means of bribing your way to comfort, and maybe to attention. This happens to the few rich, but for the majority of genuine refugees and asylees, it is a bitter fight to the end, until maybe death offers the final blow. That marks the life of one a many refugees and asylees in the Pearl of Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment