IAFR Kakuma

"I was in the field attending to a crisis in the reception center... We have demonstrations since Saturday and [refugees] destroyed the kitchen and the intervening rooms and injured 3 guards and I had to call the police twice..."

I received this heartbreaking message from a humanitarian worker in Kakuma this morning. We had planned to talk about how IAFR can help with some of the urgent needs in the Kakuma refugee camp reception centers where over 13,000 people - most of whom are children and women - are forced to wait for up to a year before receiving a simple shelter in the refugee camp proper.

The reception centers were built to offer short-term immediate shelter and provisions for hundreds of new arrivals - not thousands. The systems are clearly at breaking point.

Things often turn violent when people lose hope.

Please join me in praying for the children, women, and men seeking refuge in Kakuma today. Please also pray for the humanitarian workers seeking to help them stay alive. The relationship between refugees and NGOs is often strained.