'Dadaab, the world's biggest refugee camp'....380,000 refugees

from aljazeera........

........................"Throughout the journey, I had wondered what a refugee complex widely billed as the largest in the world would look like. The widely distributed aerial photographs from the UN from back in the early nineties show the staggering scope of the settlements. They are enough to give one the shivers.


In an area spanning 50km, just two hours away from the Kenyan-Somali border, three camps - Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera - were originally set up to host a total of 90,000 people.


Twenty years later, with more than 380,000 people registered as refugees at the Dadaab complex, I was curious as to how the camp had changed.


And if the camps were indeed overflowing with people as we'd been told over and over again, where are the new arrivals living?


We are quickly ushered around the UNHCR reception centre in Dagahaley. We are greeted by the sight of a few hundred people standing behind barbed-wire fences waiting to be registered as refugees by both the Kenyan authorities and the UN, so they might be given a ration of food, a mat, a pot and a white plastic sheet to cover the hut they are to build out of branches, twigs and sticks.


Each camp sees hundreds of new arrivals each day. The registration process is arduous, and some only complete their registration days after their arrival - sometimes, even a week - this, after walking for anything between five and 20 days to get here in the first place"..............READ MORE