Refugee Archipelago

Back in the late summer of 2019, the enormous potential of Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement to transform long-term, comprehensive humanitarian aid had yet to be tested. The global governing bodies tasked with planning and providing relief to the refugees and survivors of the South Sudanese civil war still deemed the community they had relocated to the fallow fields and thorn brush forests on the banks of the River Nile an “unique urban experiment”.

Three years prior, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) had agreed to co-create the world’s first permanent refugee city in northwest Uganda about 30 miles from the South Sudan border. 285,000 refugees were sent to what would become Bidi Bidi. Among them was Richard Akim, an aspiring South Sudanese filmmaker and community organizer. We met him in Rhino Camp—a nearby refugee settlement where more than 100,000 survivors of previous civil wars in then-Sudan had been living for decades—while he was filming a video for the UN about gender-based violence. During that first visit, Richard told us something that would become the purpose of our work: “We hear you all the time. Now you hear us.”

When German and I returned to Bidi Bidi more than two years later we found a community on the brink of survival and an "urban experiment" on the verge of collapse. Unrelenting Covid restrictions, social isolation and increasingly meager food rations had shattered any illusion of Bidi Bidi’s permanence and laid bare an innate ephemerality. The idea of home is a place of belonging and safety where one feels wanted and secure. Bidi Bidi could offer none of those assurances.

The following work of graphic reportage, Refugee Archipelago, is a mosaic of oral histories from Bidi Bidi chronicling the experiences of the refugees, relief workers and administrators who call it home....for now. It is an authentic account of the daily rhythms, discussions and aspirations of a stateless, voiceless community struggling to exist.

‍This work would not exist had Richard not tapped me on the shoulder in a dusty field in Rhino Camp and trusted us with his story. He and his family are the inspiration for this work. Likewise, we are indebted to Fahad Wadada Adams—navigator, translator, co-creator—and everyone in Bidi Bidi who shared their time and stories with us.

May the road rise to meet you all.

*Refugee Archipelago was made possible by the consent and support of the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister. All interviews and illustrations have been recorded and recreated faithfully and respectfully.