Kenya: Following pride event, Kenya's gay refugees fear for their lives

The Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya held its first LGBTQ pride event on Saturday, but now the event’s organizers are in fear for their lives.

After the event, which organizers said drew approximately 600 people, threatening messages were “pinned all over the camp on notice boards,” according to Mbazira Moesa, a Ugandan refugee and one of the event’s organizers.

Moesa said he does not know who wrote and posted the threats — which warned LGBTQ refugees to “leave the camp” or “we are going to kill you one by one” — but he said they made him “anticipate danger that may happen to me and all the LGBTIQ refugee members in Kakuma Refugee Camp.”

Kakuma, one of the largest refugee camps in the world, was established in 1992 and is run by the U.N. Refugee Agency. The camp, along with its 2015 expansion site, the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement, have a cumulative population of about 185,000 people, according to refugee agency. The refugees and asylum-seekers living at the two sites come from 19 countries, though more than half are South Sudanese. Read more via NBC