Friday, June 01, 2012 Woman in a refugee camp in eastern Chad,
with an energy-efficient cooker. The daily needs of the local
population and a quarter-million refugees are squeezing already
scarce resources like wood and water - © Celeste Hicks/IRIN
JOHANNESBURG (IRIN) - When night falls in the Dadaab refugee
complex in eastern Kenya, nearly half a million refugees are
plunged into darkness. The lack of light robs schoolchildren of
the possibility of studying and provides perfect cover for
thieves and rapists. “There are robbers who take advantage of
the dark to rob people of their phones,” said Ifo Camp resident
and freelance journalist Moulid Hujale. “Even when there’s a
full moon, there’s less crime.” For many households who cannot
afford candles or kerosene lamps, let alone a generator, the
only source of light is that produced by cooking fires. But
firewood is an increasingly scarce and contentious commodity in
an arid region where an ever growing refugee population has been
competing with locals for dwin