Tag Archives: Kenya

God help the refugees. God help us all.

Dadaab Oxfam

2012: Fatuma Sankos arrived in Dadaab two months ago with her two small sons – Abass Hassan and Mohamed Hassan. She lives in a tiny shelter made from sticks, cardboard and plastic bags. She has not yet been formally registered in the camp so is not able to get food rations and depends on other refugees for food, and aid agencies for water. Photo: Jo Harrison/Oxfam, published under Creative Commons license

Kenya announced last week that it will close all of its refugee camps, forcing more than 600,000 refugees to return to the violence they fled in their home countries of Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and other nearby countries. That’s terrible, but the United States is in no position to criticize Kenya. In secret memos uncovered last week, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ordered a 30-day “surge” of arrests of immigrant mothers and children to return them to the violence they fled in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Continue reading

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Stories while we wait

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“I am waiting,” Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote more than half a century ago, “for a rebirth of wonder.” In this in-between week, waiting for the new year, waiting for normal time to return, I am looking for stories that offer a rebirth of wonder and hope, that could light the dark nights and point to the possibility of a better future. I offer not YouTube cats, but Silent Night at the Fourth Precinct, heroism on a Kenyan bus, a connection between teacher and student. And, if you will, click over to read Ferlinghetti’s poem in full. Continue reading

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