choosing of the neediest.

For a number of reasons, logical and reactionary, since the start of the new year we opened our services at RLAP to basically all refugees including Sudanese, Eritrean, and Ethiopian. These communities in particular face extremely hard luck at the UNHCR in Egypt. Only the most extreme cases are even considered for resettlement despite legal grounds for a case.

When word got out to the various refugee communities the office was literally bombarded by possible clients. A coupe of random days during a two week period in January, we had to shut the office doors and call in extra security to fend off literally hundreds of Sudanese begging to have their cases heard. A window of opportunity opened but a wall was needed.

I do not believe that the office appropriately estimated the number of people waiting to be heard and served. In response to the floods, a wonderful intern created a basic paper intake form. 4000 forms came back the office within a matter of days. The resourcefulness of these communities once again showed itself as there are basically three different handwriting sample for each community and each story contains similar phrasing. Not everyone knows how to write and those that do had a lot of work to do!

This week we started to go through the forms- sort of a triage system. Who might have a case? Who has suffered but just not enough? Who has a priority case?. The process itself is a psycho-social study. The new interns in the office, obviously struggle the most as we hear, “Oh my gosh they’ve all been raped. They’ve all lost family…I feel soo bad.” I started to explain to a new intern that its normal and eventually she’ll start to “feel” who really has a case and (un)fortunately we start to harden up and it won’t affect you as much…I grab my stack of Eritrean applications and despite a few years of experience I too am bombarded with hopelessness.

I can breeze over the home country catastrophes…war, attacks, bombs, milita, rape, torture, family dying… but the continual persecution hits me… “my husband died, I’m alone with four children for the past 6 years, one is paralyzed from the bullet wound, I have no protection…” I reach the end of one particularly NOT compelling case and she writes, “Can someone please help me?” I freeze and show it to my colleague who simply hands it back with a shrug.

I feel it’s unfair. These people are given a chance to tell their stories. Paper cannot tell a story. Many of these cultures practice oral traditions, paper can’t capture emotions of a story. Many have security issues, thus with all of there personal and family information on the same page, they refuse to disclose their full story on paper. Many have been through numerous interviews where they have learned to give only the information they think We want to hear. Is this the best way to handle this situation? They try to transmit their desperation…how am I supposed to play “god” and decide who deserves a chance? What if the intern next to me read it, would she give someone a chance that I say has no real chance?

As a service provider I can understand limitations. Certain rules limit the amount of people that can resettle, quotas- or perhaps political influences, either way the UNHCR has (some argue inhumanly and injustly) limited the numbers of applications from these communities. I mean, how do you choose when almost all have been tortured, raped and lost family members? Who has the worst of the horrific stories? At the same time, there are legal grounds for resettlement and more importantly, they’re human. Doesn’t everybody deserve a chance? I’m starting to really think that I’m naïve to believe this.

Good things have come out of this. We have found numerous urgent situations that we will work to immediately service. These cases might have remained silent—or even died away—if we hadn’t opened our doors. I am also positive that through the information we have collected invaluable statistics will be available for analysis and hopefully policy change.

I’m not sure how to end this. It was a heavy day in the office. It’s going to be a delicate and arduous next few weeks. Aid is tough. Its one of those situations when you want to help—but its out of your control.