KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP — In the sweltering heat of Kakuma Refugee Camp, a sprawling settlement in northern Kenya and home to 289,861 refugees from over twenty countries, Zikira Samia, 39, huddles with a group of women under a tree. Her dark complexion, softened by gentle, worn eyes, reveals little of the harrowing journey that led her here. Soft-spoken yet fiercely attentive, Zikira leans forward, absorbing each woman's story. Her voice carries both authority and empathy, guiding the conversation through health, trauma, and resilience—topics she knows all too well.

Zikira Samia once lived a life of stability and respect in South Sudan. As a former high school teacher and a university graduate with a degree in education, she was a trusted figure in her community, alongside her husband, an army commander. But in 2013, the life they had built came crashing down.

Two years after South Sudan gained independence in 2011, hopes for a unified, peaceful nation began to fade. Political tensions between President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar spiraled into a civil war, igniting waves of violence that fractured communities across the young nation. What started as a power struggle grew into one of the largest refugee crises globally. According to the United Nations, by 2023, more than 2 million South Sudanese had fled to neighboring countries, with an additional 2.22 million displaced within South Sudan. This crisis now stands as the largest in Africa and the third-largest worldwide.

For Zikira, the violence brought unimaginable upheaval. Her once-stable life vanished, replaced by a fight for survival. Her husband, stripped of his command, grew bitter and disillusioned, eventually joining the opposition—a decision that turned Zikira and their three-year-old daughter into targets.

One night, armed soldiers came to Zikira’s home looking for her husband. He was nowhere to be found, but Zikira and her daughter were there. She recalls the horror that ensued: “They broke down the door, shouting his name,” she murmurs, her gaze fixed on the ground. At gunpoint, eight soldiers took turns raping her. “They took everything from me,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I lost my body, my dignity.”

Her daughter, three years old, was also subjected to the soldiers’ brutality. Zikra’s voice wavers as she describes the helplessness of that night. “I kept pleading, telling them to do whatever they wanted to me but to spare my daughter. She was innocent; she was only a child,” she says. “But they just sneered and said they were coming for me unless I told them where my husband was. I didn’t know where he was. He’d told me he was going to work, but I didn’t know exactly where.” 

As the assault continued, the ninth soldier pressed a pistol against her abdomen, violating her further. She was five months pregnant at the time, a fact that did not spare her from the unrelenting violence. By the time the soldiers left, Zikira was bleeding heavily. “It was like my body was bursting from the inside,” she says, her words barely audible. “I was bleeding clotted blood, like a liver. I bled until I fainted.”

“At dawn, I woke up to silence,” Zikira remembers. “I screamed for help, but there was no one, only the echo of gunshots in the distance.”

Only hours earlier, her once-thriving village had been reduced to a wasteland of despair. Armed groups stormed in, leaving destruction in their wake. Young men were captured, elders slaughtered, and women violated. Those who managed to escape fled into the wilderness, leaving the remains of a community fractured beyond recognition.

“The youths were captured, the old were killed, women were raped,” She explains, her tone flat but eyes distant as if reliving the nightmare. “People were not in the community. The ones who ran safely had to live for their own life.” It was as if the village had been erased, reduced to a dark memory of violence and loss.

Alone and weak, she crawled to her kitchen, found a shovel, and, in a daze of grief and exhaustion, dug a shallow grave for her daughter. She lacked the strength to give her daughter a proper burial, to perform even the simplest of last rites. “I didn’t have the energy to do anything,” she says. “I couldn’t even bury my daughter like any other family would. I had no strength left, but I covered her with soil, just a small mound to protect her.”

With her body still bleeding, she left her home, hoping to find safety, though unsure if such a thing even existed anymore. She says she crawled, inching towards the main road, a threadbare glimmer of hope her only guide. Bloodied, bruised, and barely conscious, she eventually made it to the roadside and raised her hand, hoping for a miracle. It came in the form of a petroleum truck, its driver stopping when he saw her, lifeless and battered, with blood staining her clothes.

“I raised my hand like that,” she says, demonstrating a weak wave. “The driver saw me with blood all over, and he stopped.” The driver lifted her carefully into the truck and placed her on a small bed behind his seat. He said they would cross to Uganda and then to Kenya, away from the shattered ruins of her home, though she could barely comprehend his words through the fog of her trauma.

Yet, as they journeyed toward Uganda, Zikira’s body began to betray her in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Her injuries, both visible and invisible, inflicted irreparable harm. “After that, whenever I just wake up, only urine,” she said, her voice cracking with residual shame. “Only urine. I don’t even feel like urinating anymore or controlling my short calls.” The physical toll of her ordeal left her incontinent, a condition that would become a constant reminder of the violence she had endured.

The truck driver eventually brought her to Eldoret, Kenya, promising her shelter and support. He mentioned that his wife would look after her, but upon their arrival, she discovered that this promise was empty. The driver, it turned out, was alone, and the glimmer of stability he had offered vanished in an instant. Exhausted and betrayed once again, she had to endure living with the truck driver since she had no place to go.

“The bleeding stopped by itself, but the urine continued,” she explains quietly, almost in disbelief that her body had somehow endured without medical care.

The driver, whose demeanor shifted a few weeks after they arrived, began to abuse her, mocking her refugee status and humiliating her as she continued to suffer from the pain she had endured. “He used his hands on me,” she says. “He was angry, saying I was dirty, that no one would want me. And each night, he would do as he pleased.”

After enduring unimaginable pain and humiliation, Zikira finally gathered the courage to seek help. The abuse from the driver—who would get high on khat, alcohol, and cigarettes and then forcefully assault her—left her in constant pain. Her condition worsened, and she knew she couldn’t go on like this. One day, she managed to escape and found her way to a Muslim woman selling tea on the roadside. Desperate and broken, Zikira confided in her, sharing the horrors she had been through.

The woman, moved by Zikira’s plight, connected her with another Sudanese woman who she thought might be able to help. This new ally, horrified by Zikira’s condition and the constant smell of urine, urged her to leave immediately, fearing her health would only deteriorate further without proper care. Determined to help, the woman arranged for Zikira’s passage to the Kakuma Refugee Camp, offering her a lifeline and a sliver of hope.

At Kakuma, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) processed her and granted her official refugee status. Her new life began, though it was a far cry from the comfortable existence she once knew. UNHCR provided her with a simple shelter, some cooking supplies, and monthly food rations to survive—a stark reminder of the life she left behind.

Inside the refugee camp, Zikira’s condition shocked the community. She could barely control her bodily functions, and whispers spread, with some assuming she had been cursed. Yet, amid the judgment, some empathized, understanding what she had suffered. Eventually, Zikira’s deteriorating health led her to the International Rescue Committee, where she finally saw a psychologist who listened as she began to recount her trauma. For the first time, someone tried to understand the pain that had haunted her for so long.

But Zikira’s trauma and physical scars were only the beginning. She was diagnosed with a fistula, a debilitating injury that had resulted from the violence inflicted upon her during the rape she had faced in her home country. Fistula, a severe medical condition often caused by prolonged, obstructed labor or traumatic sexual violence, is characterized by an abnormal connection between the vagina and bladder or rectum, leading to incontinence, also known as involuntary urination.

According to World Health Organization 2018 report, each year, between 50,000 to 100,000 women worldwide suffer from obstetric fistula. In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, an estimated 2 million women are affected by the condition, most of whom lack access to treatment. For Zikira, the constant leakage became a source of deep shame and isolation.

“My body betrayed me,” she shares, “and the smell kept people away.” But the fistula itself required surgery, a procedure she had to wait almost a decade for. “It wasn’t until 2022 that I was finally transferred to Eldoret, a city several hundred kilometers away from the refugee camp, for surgery,” she recalls.

The journey was long, and her heart was heavy with memories. But on that trip, she met another woman, younger but equally broken. She, too, suffered from fistula, a result of complications during childbirth. “For the first time, I didn’t feel so alone,” Zikira says. “It was like looking into a mirror, knowing that someone else understood.”

After surgeries, her fistula was finally repaired. Yet, there was a cost. “I can’t have children anymore,” she explains, her voice steady but her pain visible. “The damage was too severe.” According to the World Health Organization, fistula can lead to infertility in many cases, leaving women not only physically scarred but also robbed of their future dreams of motherhood.

Rebuilding her life in Kakuma proved to be a daunting challenge. Despite her education and experience, Zikira struggled to find meaningful work. “In South Sudan, I was respected—a teacher, a woman of knowledge,” she says. “Here, I am just another refugee.”

Like so many forced to flee conflict, survival had been her only priority; carrying official documents had not even crossed her mind. With nothing to prove her qualifications, and after struggling to look for a job, she managed to secure a teaching role at one of the camp's schools, earning just $90 a month—a shadow of the life she once knew. Yet, she remains resilient. “This is my reality now,” she says. “As refugees, we have no other choice.”

Zikira’s tragedy has transformed her into an unlikely advocate. When she’s not teaching, she spends her weekends and evenings speaking with women and girls across the camp about reproductive health and the dangers of sexual violence. Her experience with fistula and the stigma surrounding it drives her to educate others. “I know what it’s like to feel dirty, to be shunned,” she says. “No woman should have to go through that.”

Now, Zikira dreams of a world where the rights of women and girls are protected, where rape is no longer a weapon of war, and where refugees are not viewed as burdens but as individuals with value and potential. “I hope for a day when women don’t have to suffer in silence,” she says, her voice resonating with quiet strength. “We’ve already lost so much. It’s time the world sees us.”

In Kakuma, Zikira Samia is no longer just a refugee; she is a survivor, an advocate, and a teacher once again. Though the scars remain, both visible and invisible, she stands resilient—a beacon of strength for those who have none. And though her life may never return to what it once was, Zikira’s voice, filled with pain and resolve, reaches out to the world beyond the camp, demanding to be heard.