Matt Yglesias

The Biggest Challenge in the World

For years now, I’ve been cataloguing the wreckage that’s resulted from the disastrous American-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia back during Christmas of 2006. At the time, the invasion was generally cheered by conservatives and ignored by the mainstream. Ever since, terrible things have been happening. For example, Antonio Guterres is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees so he knows a lot about bad situations. And what does he think is the very worst situation? Well, it’s Dadaab in Southern Kenya where 280,000 Somalis are currently living:

Laura Heaton at Enough Said observes that “The camp was built to accommodate far fewer inhabitants, but since the beginning of the year, Dadaab has seen an influx of 4,000-5,000 new arrivals each month.” At the moment, UNHCR is trying to expand the camp to accommodate its many inhabitants but is having trouble getting Kenya to agree to offer up more land. All that aside, the sheer quantity of people is staggering. “Camp” doesn’t really fit the bill when you’re really talking about a small city all full of absolutely desperate people.