I’ve been sounding like a broken record when I continue to report that we are taking tens of thousands of DR Congolese refugees (housed in camps like this one) at the behest of the United Nations.
In fact, the DR Congolese make up the largest number of refugees being admitted to the US right now, during the Trump administration, even as Congolese elsewhere in Africa are going home. See here.
In case you are wondering, most Congolese are not Muslims, but a small number being admitted to the US are.
The Uganda camp sounded familiar to me, so I went to my archives to see if I had written about Nakivale and sure enough I had, in 2010, when we were taking thousands of Somalis from that camp.
(It is no wonder the speech police wanted RRW removed from the worldwide web, there is a heckuva lot of information archived here!)
Here is what I reported nearly ten years ago in a post entitled:
Are you sitting down! UN sending 6000 more Somalis to US this year
The Obama administration agreed to take that number from Nakivale camp in Uganda because the Somalis could not get along with the other refugees in the camp.
An article that has now been removed quoted a source who said this:
Explaining the reason of resettling Somalis to the US, Katura said Somali refugees have failed to integrate with other refugee groups living in Nakivale and with the local communities because of their unique language and culture. [This is insane, they can’t get along with other African people but they are going to jump into the mythical American melting pot and come out as just good old regular Americans!—ed]
Later, in 2017, we learned that some of the Nakivale Somalis went to Minnesota thanks to Catholic Charities, here.
Earlier this year we heard about the allegations of fraud and corruption in the UN system in Africa, here, and this news is a continuation of a supposed effort by the UN to find out exactly how alleged corruption is occurring.
From 100 Reporters:
UN Refugee Agency Reopens Corruption Investigation
Refugee Sources Report Retaliation After Speaking Out
The United Nations is investigating allegations of corruption among employees at a Ugandan refugee camp following a 100Reporters investigation, but victims say they face retaliation for testifying and that the UN is not protecting them.
In a story published in partnership with NBC News and Journalists for Transparency, refugees at the Nakivale settlement in southwest Uganda said employees and contractors working for the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, as well as local police and employees of the Ugandan government’s Office of the Prime Minister and police, were demanding bribes for everything from access to essential services, including medical referrals, to resettlement in Europe or the U.S.
The reporting came as part of a broader investigation this spring, in which dozens of refugees in East Africa accused UNHCR staff and contractors of exploiting refugees and whitewashing corruption charges.
Refugees interviewed said they felt they had nowhere to turn when they witnessed corruption, as they had to rely on the UNHCR, whose mandate is to protect them, for food, medicine and safety.
A UNHCR spokesperson denied the allegations of wrongdoing at the time the stories were published. But staff are now carrying out interviews with refugee witnesses at the Nakivale refugee settlement and elsewhere.
Continue reading because there is a question about whether the UN is looking for fraud and corruption, or trying to find out how allegations of fraud reached the mainstream media’s ears!
Maddening isn’t it!
First we took thousands of Somalis from this camp and now we are taking thousands more Congolese just because the UN wants us to take them off their hands.
Endnote: Just had a quick look at the data at the Refugee Processing Center and see that we processed a whopping 2,697 refugees into the US from Uganda in the last fiscal year. See here. (Don’t look at the colored map it is messed up, look at the chart and scroll down to Uganda.)