Ben Rawlence

“I tried to explain to the NSC officials my own wonder at this teeming ramshackle metropolis with cinemas, football leagues, hotels and…

— Ben Rawlence

“When he asked about work, Noor laughed. Guled learned that employment in Kenya was forbidden. Like many governments anxious about asylum seekers,…

— Ben Rawlence

“In Ifo he felt only hostility. The inhabitants eyed him nervously. Guled had come from a place of fighting and fear; as…

— Ben Rawlence

“Al-Shabaab seemed right about many things. The newsletter said that international aid was brought to ruin Somali agriculture and to make people…

— Ben Rawlence

“In the city, the ‘Battle of Mogadishu’, as al-Shabaab’s offensive was known, intensified street by street with trenches, snipers and indiscriminate shelling.…

— Ben Rawlence

“Millions more, the vast majority, remain in camps. And through our tax contributions to the UN, we all pay billions of dollars…

— Ben Rawlence

“I thought of the former child soldier Guled and the many like him, who had fled to the camp to escape the…

— Ben Rawlence

“But Ethiopia and America were nervous of an Islamic government and the US and other nations sponsored Ethiopia to invade Somalia and…

— Ben Rawlence

“At a time when there are more refugees than ever, the rich world has turned its back on them. Our myths and…

— Ben Rawlence

“Poverty does not necessarily lead to extremism,’ I said. In my head, images of the proud Imams defending their traditions against the…

— Ben Rawlence

“Raised on the meagre rations of the United Nations for their whole lives, schooled by NGOs and submitted to workshops on democracy,…

— Ben Rawlence

“The place where Guled had come seeking sanctuary was, according to Oxfam, a ‘public health emergency’, and had been for several years.…

— Ben Rawlence

“Back in 1992, the camp originally held ninety thousand Somali refugees fleeing the civil war. They had reproduced. Then others had come:…

— Ben Rawlence

“After so much death, it was a wonder anyone remained in the country at all. No one really knows the population of…

— Ben Rawlence

“beauty contest, the porters jostled for business. Those with big families could not carry all their rations, so they traded some of…

— Ben Rawlence

“I thought of Nisho, the young man who works as a porter in the market, his face clouding into a scowl as…

— Ben Rawlence

“Isha was familiar with the bleeding gums, the inflamed limbs, the cramped pain of drinking, the torture when the empty stomach eats…

— Ben Rawlence

“No one wants to admit that the temporary camp of Dadaab has become permanent: not the Kenyan government who must host it,…

— Ben Rawlence