Forget about rough guides that beckon tourists to postcard destinations for a breakaway from the ordinary.
It is not every day you get to read a gripping guidebook about a refugee camp.
But in just 32 pages, Innocent Magambi’s Refugees in Malawi: All You Need to Know gives an inside account of life at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa District, formerly a notorious detention centre for political prisoners at the peak of Malawi’s one-party rule.
It unveils the worst-kept secrets of the country’s 1989 law that keeps the displaced community out of sight.
The chilling effect of the 36-year-old encampment law grabs readers eyeballs to the very end—an encounter with life in the interiors of Malawi’s sprawling “international village”, about 40km from the capital city, Lilongwe.
The book leaves little or no room for sudden stops like the checkpoints on the approach to the camp of 11 nationalities where armed police and immigration officers halt vehicles and greet travellers blank-facedly: Muli bwanji?
A familiar soundtrack of the Warm Heart of Africa, the compulsory greeting stirs sudden swirls in the tummies of travellers with limited command of Chichewa, widely spoken in Malawi. Refugees who stutter or stall in their replies are sent back for travelling without official permits.
Dashed dreams
The curfew denies the displaced community freedom of movement, education, healthcare, employment and economic services beyond the camp.
Inside, children who call Malawi home seldom complete basic education at an understaffed primary school with unskilled teachers. Each serves a class of over 100 pupils, almost double the recommended 60. They split the pupils into three two-hour shifts.
Even fewer learners proceed to a secondary school with two shifts, a dead end for aspirations to higher education.
“Dreaming big is a luxury. We cannot pursue our dreams, let alone offer our potential to the country we have known all our lives,” says Devota Iradukunda, 26, who fled the Burundian war at the age of four alongside her grandmother and siblings.
The restricted movement dates back to a decade before her birth.
Then, nearly one in every six people in southern Malawi was a Mozambican fleeing civil war next door and the refugee population peaked at over a million by 1990, reports the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The exodus compelled Malawi to ratify the UN Refugee Convention and enact the Refugees Act, with historical reservations to ring-fence jobs, land, schools and other services for Malawians.
Magambi finds the 1989 law too outdated to address the evolving needs of refugees within and outside Dzaleka, where journalists and visitors require an all-clear from the Department of Refugees.
The once-fenced multicultural emergency camp has degenerated into a long-term informal settlement that the author-cum-campaigner called home since 2003, when he arrived from the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
On April 14 2024, he sought asylum in Italy amid State-sponsored reprisals, including a ban on his non-governmental organisation, Inua (Swahili for the soul).
The organisation stands accused of embarrassing government agents with exposés of rampant corruption, human trafficking syndicates and other atrocities in Dzaleka, where wealthy gangs hold Ethiopian illegal immigrants hostage until their relatives pay ransom.
“The refugee cause is personal to me,” he writes. “I’ve experienced and witnessed the struggles of those seeking safety here at Dzaleka.”
The ugly scenes include the December 14 2022 bombing of Burundian Butoyi Fideli and four other whistleblowers opposed to the corrupt cartel and government officials who were exploiting refugees seeking international resettlement.
The grenade attack that killed Fideli exposes the dark arts of the camp’s underworld.
Dzaleka houses 53 000 refugees, five time its intended capacity. On arrival, each person is registered, interviewed and given ration cards, including a monthly allowance $7.5. This contradicts suggestions that they receive hefty cashouts for business and daily needs.
Some wait over a decade to get refugee status from a national committee, according to the guidebook.
“Without this status, they live in limbo, unable to access benefits, including scholarships from UNHCR’s partners, resettlement and refugee passports for essential travel to access education, medical care and family abroad,” Magambi writes.
On May 17 last year, government forcibly relocated truckloads of refugees from urban centres to Dzaleka, heightening overcrowding and scramble for dwindling aid.
Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ng’oma claimed Malawi was under siege from refugees on the loose, including fugitives of Rwanda Genocide.
However, some have since returned to business hotspots where their shops are favoured by locals because they sell diverse goods from daybreak till late in the night. The refugees are silently transforming the host communities’ business culture, with some locals emulating their work ethic.
Despite the encampment law, skilled refugees, particularly healthcare workers, are allowed to work in understaffed hospitals.
According to Malawi Human Rights Commission director of civil and political rights Peter Chisi, the re-encampment order worsened hate speech against refugees and asylum seekers.
“The commission swiftly engaged associations of small-scale businessowners to explain the benefits of hosting refugees and we are glad the situation did not get out of hand,” he says.
Law review
The violations of refugees’ rights have amplified calls for law reform, currently underway.
Early this year, MHRC regional coordinator Victor Khwima told journalists in Blantyre that encampment denies refugees integration for the benefit of host nations.South Africa and Angola have abolished the restrictive policy.
Dzaleka’s tell-all tale offers policymakers a dark chapter of the law steeped in historical fear overtaken by the prevailing realities.
It also debunks the myths and celebrates the camp’s unsung heroes and faces of resilience and hope.
The who is who includes the heart-thumping Amahoro Drummers from Burundi and Congolese musician Menes La Plume, who founded Tumaini Festival.
Others are self-taught computer programmer Remy Gakwaya, Fountain of Hope founder Marcel Chiruza and filmmaker Raphael Nbanga of Mirash Films.
