Kakuma, Kenya — Poems from Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp

More than 300,000 refugees live in Kakuma camp in northern Kenya, an isolated and arid region, shut away from the rest of the country, depending on a faltering aid system for survival.

That always unequal relationship is now under more strain than ever. Deep funding cuts means harsh choices are being imposed by the aid agencies on who is helped - even if only barely - and those that have to go without.

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A new system, begun in August, divides refugees into four categories. Those deemed most vulnerable (category 1 and 2) receive food rations - but at well below recommended minimum nutritional needs. Category 3 get a cash transfer of $4 a month, while category 4 receive nothing at all.

These poems by Peter Kidi explore that tension. They navigate between hope and hunger; between the promises of aid programmes, and the realities of daily survival; between policies designed to help, and the barriers they sometimes create.

Kidi is a South Sudanese poet and activist who grew up in Kakuma. His poems dissect the injustices of the aid system, while reflecting the resilience of those that are forced to endure. His work has been featured internationally, including a recent publication with the London School of Economics, and upcoming work with King's College London.

Category 3

By Peter Kidi

A lament from the heart of Kakuma where hunger is quantified and mercy digitised. Through the story of Mama Akongo, a mother stripped of assistance by a cold computer screen, the poem exposes the cruelty of systems that turn survival into data. It captures the anguish of mothers pleading - not for privilege - but recognition of their shared humanity.

Read the poem In the heat of noon,

with a baby strapped tight on her back

and another tugging at her torn leso,

Mama Akongo stood

a single mother,

a quiet fighter in the desert of the forgotten.

She hadn't received a message,

no buzz, no beep,

just silence from a phone that barely worked

like the system that birthed her pain.

So she walked,

through the dust-lined path to the fieldpost,

a place where hope and heartbreak stand in queues,

where aid is weighed by digits,

and survival wears a number.

The line moved like time

slow, unsure,

every step heavy with hunger

and the unanswered prayers of mothers.

When it was finally her turn,

she stepped forward

heart pounding like a drum

at the altar of some cruel arithmetic.

The aid worker didn't even look up,

just typed,

paused,

then frowned

"Category 3," he said.

Category 3.

No food ration. No cooking oil.

No explanation.

Just a screen that says: Not today. Not you.

It means going home to nothing,

watching your children ask for lunch,

and answering with tears.

As if those two words

were not a sentence

to starvation.

Akongo blinked.

"Are you sure? Maybe check again?"

she whispered.

But the screen had spoken.

And the world, once again,

had turned its back.

She fell to her knees,

not out of weakness

but because even warriors break

when the war is against their own dignity.

Her cry cut the silence:

"Why?

Why am I not a mother in your system?

Do my children not hunger the same?

Did I not bleed at childbirth,

like the women in category one?"

People stared.

Some turned away,

afraid to drown in the truth of her tears.

But she kept wailing:

"This aid, is it for numbers

or for the living?

How can a message decide

who eats and who fades?"

The sun heard her.

The wind, too.

And maybe, somewhere,

God wept with her.

For a camp divided by digital fate,

where mercy wears filters,

and humanity

is a category

on a screen.

Proof of life

By Peter Kidi

Through the story of Deng, the poem confronts the brutal silence surrounding refugee suffering. It exposes the cruelty of the systems that count bodies but not pain; names but not dreams. It reminds us that every refugee's breath is already proof of life - even when the world refuses to see it.

Read the poem They said,

"Line up.

Bring your body.

Bring your breath.

Bring your proof of life."

But they never asked

how many of us

are already dead

inside.

We stood beneath a sun that mocks thirst.

A wind too dry to carry prayer.

Waiting

as if survival needs confirmation

from the same hands that forgot us.

Deng stood in front of me.

Slender shadow of a boy who once dreamt

He laughed

the kind of laugh you only hear

from people hiding something

unbearable.

"Maybe I don't exist," he whispered.

"Maybe I should hang my body by the gate

with a note that says:

Is this enough proof for you?"

We chuckled.

Because in Kakuma,

laughter is the language of the condemned.

Three days later,

they found him swinging

from the tree behind the latrines.

The flies knew first.

The birds sang nothing.

No one screamed.

We've all run out of noise.

Just another name

crossed off a food list.

Another fingerprint

that will no longer warm the scanner.

No funeral.

No press release.

No UN statement.

Only silence,

and a mother too tired to cry.

So I write this

with hands that tremble,

with a voice full of ghosts,

for those who left

without saying goodbye.

I write this for

those still breathing,

but barely.

I write this because

you should know:

when they ask for proof of life,

what they're really asking is:

"Have you broken yet?"

She carried it alone

By Peter Kidi

An elegy for the unseen women of refugee camps forced to bear hunger, bureaucracy, and despair in silence. It follows a mother, labelled "Category 4", and how her death can echo louder than any protest.

Read the poem She walked home

without speaking.

Her children's laughter

echoed in the distance.

They hadn't heard

the sentence

passed in silence.

Category 4.

Like a disease.

Like a stain.

Like she didn't belong

in the line

for food.

Not sick enough.

Not vulnerable enough.

Not starving the right way.

Who decides

whose hunger

matters?

She held the ration card

like it could

rewrite her fate.

But the barcode

was already cold.

She sat on the floor,

hands in her lap,

eyes fixed

on nothing.

No words.

No fire.

No tears.

Just the ache

of being unseen

in a place

meant for saving.

The pot was empty.

So was the jerrycan.

So was she.

That night

she made a choice.

Not to fight.

Not again.

She had marched.

She had shouted.

She had buried her pride

on the road

to the UN gate.

They listened.

They nodded.

Then they said

"There's nothing much

we can do."

So she walked.

To South Sudan.

With cracked heels,

three children,

and one fading thought:

If I must die,

let me die

where my people

are buried.

She crossed

the dry land

like a prayer

too tired

to be answered.

She reached the border

and begged.

"Let me go home.

I am already

half-dead."

But they turned her back.

She wasn't allowed

to suffer there either.

What kind of world

builds fences

around grief?

She came home

to the same silence.

To the same pot.

To the same children

who still believed

she could fix things.

That night

she bathed them,

kissed their foreheads,

and hummed

a goodbye

disguised as a lullaby.

She did not cry.

She had cried

all the tears

she was born with.

She tied the curtain shut.

Took one last breath.

And left.

No note.

No scream.

Just silence.

But her silence

asks a question

louder

than any riot:

What breaks in a system

when a mother must die

for her children

to be noticed?

What justice is this

that gives food

by category

but lets women

hang by threads?

What kind of help

watches a woman drown

in daylight

and calls it

procedure?

She did not die

because she was weak.

She died

because the system

was never built

to see her.

And we

we let her

carry it

alone.

Peter Kidi, Poet and refugee activist