Lesbians, gays fear attacks in Kenyan refugee camp

Eva Nabagala hoped she and her young son would be safe from her family when they fled Uganda for a Kenyan refugee camp — but instead, the 28-year-old says she was attacked and raped there as punishment for being a lesbian.

“I have been threatened with death, I have been beaten, I have been harassed sexually, and I have been sexually abused, raped,” Nabagala said.

She is one of a group of around 300 gay, lesbian and transgender refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, who say other refugees repeatedly attack them because of their sexual orientation.

The group say police and UN refugee agency UNHCR have failed to protect them.

UNHCR Kenya said police investigated reports of violence or other crimes, that the agency offered support to survivors.

“Whenever we are informed ... we do our utmost to provide medical, legal and social-economic support and psychosocial counselling to survivors,” it said.

Kenya’s national police spokesperson, Charles Owino, said he was unaware of any violence against the group of refugees.

Nabagala said she and her now two-year-old son came to Kenya in 2018 after her family threatened to kill her because she was a lesbian.

“I ran from my home ... because I wanted to be safe, I wanted protection, but it has turned into something the opposite,” Nabagala said.

Stephen Sebuuma, another Ugandan refugee in Kakuma, said refugees armed with iron bars, sticks and machetes damaged their houses on three occasions, injuring four adults and two children.

“Police insult us instead of helping us,” Sebuuma, 32, said.

Kambungu Mubarak, 31, also from Uganda, said the attackers also burnt two houses.

UNHCR Kenya said they were informed of the attack, contacted Kenya’s refugee affairs secretariat and sent an ambulance.

The agency said it also contacted police.

But Sebuuma said the police never helped them.

“We have written complaints; people have got OBs [(Occurrence Book reports] from police.

“So many of them, police even, sometimes chase us saying ‘we are tired of you’," he said.

Same-sex relationships are punishable in Kenya by 14 years in jail.

It is rarely enforced but discrimination is common.

Some refugees tried to leave the camps but say life was so hard they returned.

Winnie Nabaterega, 23, said  she fled Uganda in 2019 after being raped and becoming pregnant.

Her daughter, now two, lives with her.

Nabaterega was constantly threatened by other refugees, she said.

“We were told because we were homosexuals ... they would put poison in the water.” — Reuters