Kenyan LGBTQ+ safe houses 'overwhelmed' as cuts hit refugee camps

• Food rations at refugee camps cut after funding slashed
• LGBTQ+ refugees flee Kakuma because of hunger, abuse
• Nairobi safe houses unable to cope with number of arrivals

NAIROBI - Terry Namalo, a Ugandan trans woman, left Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp in September after the "hunger became too much" and headed to a safe house in Nairobi, joining scores of other LGBTQ+ refugees forced to move after international aid cuts.

"This year has been tough on refugees in the camp because of the reduced food rations," the 25-year-old said. "Refugees are going days without food, and those who can afford to buy are forced to do with one meal per day."

From Kenya to Bangladesh, refugees have seen their food rations reduced because of a collapse in aid funding from the United States and other Western countries.

President Donald Trump slashed his foreign aid budget and shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year.

In June, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said it was reducing its food and cash assistance in Kakuma, the Dadaab camp and the Kalobeyei settlement to the lowest levels ever recorded.

Lucretia , coordinator of the LGBTQ rights group Queers of Kakuma, said that between June and October the group had helped 200 vulnerable queer refugees move to safe houses in Nairobi.

"The food crisis in the camp has complicated the situation of already vulnerable queer refugees. They are being targeted (and) attacked, and other refugees are stealing the little food they have," Lucretia, who asked that she only be identified by one name for privacy reasons, told Context/the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Nairobi.

Now safe houses in the capital are becoming dangerously crowded.

"The number of those making (their) way out of Kakuma is so huge that the available safe houses cannot handle it," said Craig Paris, the executive director of the Refugee Coalition of East Africa (RefCEA).

"We are not only worried about the shortage of food but also about overstretched water, sanitation and hygiene services," he said, warning that residents were at risk of diseases such as cholera.

'Requests are overwhelming'

Since June, two safe houses in Nairobi have received 300 requests for shelter from refugees from Kakuma, home to about 300,00 refugees.

"The requests are overwhelming. Our safe house can only accommodate 40 persons, but now we are housing 96," said Gregory, who did not want to give his last name and runs resource mobilisation at the Kipepeo shelter.

He said they had adjusted meal and sleeping plans to accommodate the extra people.

"Currently, we are only able to provide dinner to the refugees. We have three people sleeping on one mattress, while others sleep on bare floors."

Rhoda, who moved to Kipepeo from Kakuma, said accessing menstruation products was challenging.

"At our shelter, the few available menstrual products cannot meet the needs of all the women here. We have some reusable sanitary pads, which we are sharing, and that is unhygienic," she said.

At a shelter run by MAREPA, a refugee-led, non-profit organisation based in the United States and Kenya, privacy has become a concern, said Berita, the shelter's founder who did not give her last name.

The safe house can host 30 people but now has 100. While it originally served lesbians, it has opened its doors to other queer refugees from Kakuma.

"Our shelter was a safe space for women, and we feel the current situation has compromised their privacy a great deal," Berita said.

Security fears

Queer refugee organisations under RefCEA have launched an online fundraiser to open a dedicated shelter for 50 trans men and provide food relief for queer refugees in Nairobi and the western city of Eldoret.

"We have reported cases of sexual assault within safe houses, and the majority of victims, as per our records, are trans men," Paris said. "We want to secure a safe space for them."

On Sept. 28, police officers raided a shelter on the outskirts of the city after receiving complaints about the number of people going in and out of the compound.

Charity, an administrator at the shelter who did not give her last name, said the shelter stopped admitting new refugees after the incident.

"Police stormed in at midnight, but we explained the situation, and they understood and left. Two days later, community members stormed our shelter. They injured three people before police intervened and saved the situation," Charity said.

Some refugees at the safe shelters are afraid to venture outside for fear of attacks. But others, like Dennis Beto, have no choice.

Beto, who is from Uganda, moved from Kakuma to Nairobi in late September. But his shelter cannot afford to feed him, and so he works at a nearby market as a porter, earning 300 Kenyan shillings ($2.33) a day, or enough for three meals, he said.

Many of his friends at the safe house have found jobs in restaurants, supermarkets and barber shops, thanks to the government's Shirika plan, which came into effect in March and makes it easier for refugees to work.

Lucretia from Queers of Kakuma said safe houses were already struggling, because they relied on organisations that have been affected by the Trump administration's aid cuts.

Mercy Juma, head of communications for WFP in Kenya, said the situation in Kakuma was unlikely to change unless more funding opportunities opened.

"Without adequate funding the situation will only get worse for refugees," she said.

($1 = 128.9500 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Jackson Okata; editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile and Ayla Jean Yackley. )