By Peter Kidi in Kakuma
The bureaucratic logic of aid categorisation divides refugees into groups – Category 1, 2, 3 – which determines levels of food assistance, training, and opportunities. Such targeting is defended by the aid system as necessary for fairness and efficiency. But for those in the lower categories, it feels less like fairness and more like exclusion written into policy.
He found the word on a notice board:
Category 3.
Next to his family’s name,
printed small as if it could hide
the weight it carried.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
The neighbour sighed
“It means less.”
Another muttered
“It means waiting.”
Someone whispered
“It means forgotten.”
He walked through the camp
as if numbers were fences,
as if categories were borders
cutting through the same hunger.
Category 1 eats first.
Category 2 trains for tomorrow.
Category 3 watches silence
served on an empty plate.
How do you explain to a child
that his hunger has been ranked?
That his worth has been filed away
under numbers he never chose?
The boy touched his ribs,
counting them like tally marks.
Was he still himself
a son, a brother, a dreamer
or only a line on a list
that says: not today?
The Silent Category
This poem was first published by the New Humanitarian