Forgotten Dadaab camp refugees share their harrowing stories of survival

In many ways, 2015 was the year of the refugee.

More than a million people made their way to Europe seeking shelter. And the world was forced to reckon with the fact that millions more have already made their way to the relative safety of UN run camps in countries like Turkey and Lebanon.    

But, inside the world's largest refugee camp, 2015 was just another year that came and went, with very little attention paid by the wider world. That camp is an inhospitable corner of northern Kenya, in the desert, where only thorn bushes grow. That camp is Dadaab, and it's home to more than half-a-million people.    

The camp first opened in the early 1990s, Dadaab was meant to be a temporary city in the desert.  But its hardened since into an uneasy permanence.

"There's no plumbing, no permanent roads, there's no drainage, no electricity... everybody operates on the fiction that this place is temporary but it's actually become permanent."-  Journalist Ben Rawlence, author of "City of Thorns."

For the past four years, journalist Ben Rawlence has been visiting the camp, and collecting its stories in his book, "City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp." Ben Rawlence joined Connie Walker from London, England.

This segment was produced by The Current's Ines Colabrese and Pacinthe Mattar.