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Somalis find survival, not life, in Dadaab refugee campDate : 17/06/2009 Publication
: DPA News International Category
: Feature
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Dadaab, Kenya - They come in their thousands, travelling across Somalia's arid landscape to seek out a new life far from the guns and bombs that have ravaged their country for almost two decades.
Those who can afford it make the journey in packed buses. The others trudge hundreds of kilometres, risking attack by militiamen, bandits and hyenas that have developed a taste for human flesh.
At the end of the journey, in east Kenya, lies the cold comfort of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, now buckling under the weight of almost 280 000 souls.
Asli Omar Aden (32) is one of more than 30 000 Somalis to have fled to Dadaab this year, bringing her two children, aged seven and 10, with her.
It took the family two weeks to walk from Mogadishu, where battles between government forces and insurgents have killed hundreds of civilians and displaced more than 120 000 since early May.
"When the fighting started, my husband was in the market ... there was machine-gun fire between us," she says as she shelters beneath a tree waiting be registered at Dadaab. "I do not know where he is now."
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