In the film Jurassic Park, there is a scene wherein Tyrannosaurus Rex attempts to kill a group of humans. A doctor calls out, “Don’t move! He can’t see you if you don’t move!” While the scientific accuracy of this statement is dubious, it is interesting when applied to life, human attention, and social media.
A little more than sixty miles from the western border of Somalia – into its neighboring country, Kenya – lies a town with a population the size of Minneapolis. Its residents? Refugees from Somalia who fled from war in their homeland.
The camp was first set up in 1992 and has grown to house more than 350,000 permanent residents. Lately, with Europe struggling with an influx Syrian refugees, Dadaab has been forgotten. How can the largest refugee camp in the world be forgotten?
The United Nations Refugee Agency has worked to supply Dadaab with resources and recently the German minister has paid a visit to Dadaab, but deforestation has left Dadaab with little to no resources, making the refugee camp prone to illnesses, like the cholera epidemic in January of 2016.
But even with the assistance from other countries and the UN, Dadaab has slipped from the media’s attention. Why?
Refugees have lived in Dadaab for almost twenty-five years. Some children born in the camp have known nothing but the red sand and thorned fences their whole lives. How has the problem not been solved?
The Kenyan government tolerates the existence of Dadaab, but only just. More than often, Dadaab is used as a scapegoat, to blame for terrorist attacks unrelated to the refugees.
Three-hundred and fifty thousand people. Dilapidated huts covered with plastic, squatting in the sand, forming rows upon rows of makeshift homes. Twenty-five years. The largest refugee camp in the world. Dadaab.
Why is it that nobody knows? When I learned of Dadaab, I was shocked to discover that such a place existed. How could a city become so invisible to mainstream media? And I’m sure that there are many other horrible things going on in the world that I have no idea of.
Is it because their existence is a peaceful one? In a country across the globe, in a remote city, in the middle of a red and sandy landscape that offers nothing but rock and poor soil, lies a city – unmoving – but very much alive. We focus on things that move, that are violent, that affect us. Dadaab’s lack of appearance in the news and media reflects upon the very nature of human attention.
Sources:
http://www.cartographie.ird.fr/publi/Refugies/Final_report.pdf
http://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-ben-rawlence-20160103-story.html
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/feb/01/dadaab-somalia-home-cannot-leave-refugees
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/01/11/462698276/the-worlds-largest-refugee-camp-looks-like-a-slum-from-star-wars
http://data.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa/region.php?id=3
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/10/world/dadaab-refugees/
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