Malawian Dzaleka Refugee Camp houses between 9.000-11.000 African refugees from the conflict-stricken regions of the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda.  These refugees are caught in the infinite present, between past and future, in search for a place to call home.

Espoir from the DRC is only 15. His past is ruined by the war, his future is unclear. Orphaned during the bloody massacre between the hutu and the tutsi, his voice is now only breaking, yet his duties are that of an adult. He is raising his two younger brothers, Dzini (13) and Emable (11). The boys watched their parents being shot in their sleep.  The kids managed to flee to the safe shelter of a local Catholic church, but it was Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi that was to be their final destination. Espoir takes his brothers to lessons with him as he is one of the lucky students to have made it to the camp’s secondary school run by the Jesuit Refugee Service. His home is four walls of sand clay bricks on a soil floor. Deeply religious, he ornamented its dirty windows with sky-blue painted words praising god.

The sand-storm howling in the Dzaleka refugee camp carries the stories of kids desperate to be heard. Children under 18 years old constitute 55% of Dzaleka’s population, many of them orphans and unaccompanied minors. Having lost their families in just minutes, they were forced to run.  These are the children of conflict and war. Their hopes for a decent future are frail; their lives are deprived of a 'raison d’etre'.

They are not just looking for a quiet and secure place to call home; they are fleeing from a daunting existence. Life on the run has become routine. Those who still have courage are hoping to get out rather than in.

Mugisha's story is heartbreaking. The war in the DRC damaged this 15 year old orphan on both psychological and physical levels.  As a young a boy he had it all: a life of pleasure, foreign travels, private schools and even a laptop. He was only 11 when his father was shot for oppositionist activity.  The rest of his family thrown into prison. His life changed in a moment, ibecoming a prison nightmare that was painfully real. As a captive he witnessed the shooting of his father, the raping of his mother, the subsequent delivery of a baby girl, and the death of both due to malnutrition and exhaustion . An attempt to escape by night was met by the disaster.  All of Mugisha’s siblings were shot dead by the prison guards.  Mugisha got a bullet in the knee, but managed to evade his captors. His lonely odyssey brought him through Burundi and Tanzania to Dzaleka. Considering all he went through, it is of little surprise that Mugisha is suffering from nightmares every night.

“At least there is peace here: no shootings or immediate danger,” – he says.

It takes a strong character to maintain a taste for life when it is coated with the deaths of all those who were once dear to you. Mugisha draws and writes poems. Carpe diem is his philosophy.  He knows as no one else does that death can come at any time.

These kids are spending the best years of their life stalled in the gap between government policies, power struggle, legal frameworks and the dilemma of the refugee burden. Whether it is a glimpse of the postcolonial mentality, or their invincible hope that drives them, they see a way to a better life in every white person’s face.  They will fight till the end for their right to normal life, without rhyme or reason. The French writer Antoine de Saint Exupery gave us some excellent food for thought: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." Are we responsible enough?

The Land of the Wind

A 45-minute drive up north from Malawi’s capital Lilongwe will take you to Dzaleka refugee camp. This open settlement feels much further away, the temperatures are cooler and the July winds are considerably stronger than in the capital.

An area formerly used as a political prison under the Banda regime, Dzaleka became a home for refugees in 1994 when the Malawian government negotiated a treaty with UNHCR.  The first wave of refugees were brought in from the Lilongwe markets, where their presence had caused unrest with the local Malawians. Back then, the first settlers on Dzaleka land were just a small number - below 1000. By 2003 the figure had risen to 6000, resulting in the ongoing expansion of this camp.