Foundation News
The Kakuma Refugee Camp (including the nearby Kalobeyei Camp) in the Turkana Desert of northwestern Kenya is home to approximately 200,000 refugees from 21 countries. The camp was established in 1992 to accommodate approximately 40,000 “Lost Boys” who walked there from their villages in Sudan. I have heard many experienced humanitarian aid workers describe Kakuma as the worst place in the world. In Dave Eggers book, What is the What, Lost Boy Achak Deng, after surviving for years as a child wandering across deserts and swamps in Sudan and eventually reaching Kakuma, describes it as “a place in which no one, simply no one but the most desperate, would ever consider spending a day” (Eggers, 2007).