Mohammud Abdi Ahmad, Somalia "We had to walk 11 days and nights, without stopping"

My name is Mohammud Abdi Ahmad. I’m 25 years old, and have lived for the past 14 years in the refugee camp of Dadaab. I’ve been here since the beginning.

My mother, my three brothers and I left our hometown, Kismayo, in 1991, because of the war. We had to walk 11 days and nights, without stopping, to get to Kenya. People ate carcasses of dead animals on the way. There was no water. Many old people died on the way. Some children were left behind by their parents, who couldn’t carry all of them.

Then UNHCR brought us here from the border, in lorries.

I work as a translator for the relief agencies in the camp. I’m paid about $ 30 a month. It is not enough to provide for my family. Whatever we’re given by the agencies is not enough, and not very good quality. We get three kilos of yellow maize every fifteen days. We have to trade part of our food rations for clothes, utensils, and school books.

I went to school in the camp. But there are no outcomes after graduation, even with a diploma.

The peace here is only apparent. There’s lack of budget, no health, no person to help us from the outside. The agencies running the camps have no funds. The conditions in the camp are getting worse. There is donor fatigue, we get less and less.

Dadaab is a difficult place, very unsafe. I cannot leave the camp and settle in Kenya, but I cannot go back to Somalia either, because of insecurity.

I don’t think I will go back to Somalia, because the same things are still happening there. From outside it seems to be peaceful, people seem to like each other. But if you dig deeper, there are still a lot of clashes.

We hear from relatives and friends back home, they tell us what is happening there. I don’t think the new government will change things. The new members of parliament, the clan leaders arethe ones who destroyed Somalia. We need to change them.

I don’t know where I will end up, but I’m fed up with life here in the camp. I don’t have the opportunity to resettle to a third country. My plans are very dark for the future. I don’t want to waste my life in a refugee camp.