"Mum, Were We Meant to Suffer All Our Lives?"
IPS, Italy - February 1, 2008

Nadifo Gababa with her five children at the refugee camp in Nairobi

The post-election violence here has turned nearly 500,000 Kenyans into internally displaced persons (IDPs). Caught up in this unrest are refugees from neighbouring countries -- such as Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia -- who sought refuge in Kenya but now find themselves destitute once again.
Nadifo Gababa fled to Kenya from her home in Ethiopia in 2005. The Ethiopian authorities claimed that she was financially supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) -- an organization formed in 1973 to fight for the rights of the Oromo people of Ethiopia. OLF accuse the Ethiopian government of decades of human rights abuses against the Oromo. Gababa feared arrest.
Gababa was relieved when the truck she had been bundled into with her five children reached Huruma, an estate in Nairobi’s east-lands safely. Since she and her children speak Kiswahili it was not long before she was directed to the local Mosque.With some money left over after her arrival, she rented a one-roomed shack, enrolled her children in local schools, and got herself a job at a nearby hotel. Life was manageable until violence broke out in the city soon after Mwai Kibaki was declared winner of the Dec. 27 presidential elections ...
Nadifo Gababa: When we came to the camp here, my son asked, "Mum, were we meant to suffer all our lives? Perhaps we should just go to Ethiopia and die."
I want to be strong… to be there for my children. If it means breaking stones to make pebbles for sale, then I want to do that for my family’s upkeep. I want to live another day in peace. I want to believe this will happen very soon ...