For many of the refugees it cares for, resettlement is the ultimate goal, yet the most elusive. And until they restart their lives in a safe country where they have a chance at getting citizenship, the organization that is charged with protecting them can seem as repressive as the dictatorships some have escaped.

Refugees often cannot even get refugee status and qualify for resettlement abroad without the UNHCR's involvement. And while the agency helped resettle 55,000 people in 2018, by its own estimate, that's less than 5 percent of the refugees needing resettlement worldwide.

In Dadaab, where resettlement is known as "boufis" — or "the urge to move abroad" — resettlement is associated with wealth. "A poor man has no place in resettlement," said one Somali refugee in his 50s who has been in the camp for 16 years. "So many in the diaspora, when I ask them [how they were resettled], they say, 'It was my money.'"

In Kakuma, northwest Kenya, home to almost 200,000 people from a dozen countries, refugees said it is possible to pay some of a resettlement bribe by signing over ownership of your shelter. "If you don't have money, you need to hand over your house, if it's good," said a South Sudanese refugee, who paid $600 to forward his own case. "If your house is bad and you don't have the money, you will never go."

In Nakivale settlement, in southwest Uganda, refugees say corruption is everywhere. According to interviews with almost 20 refugees, officials and authorities demand bribes for everything from medical referrals (20,000-50,000 Ugandan shillings, or $5-$13), to collecting their food rations ($1.30), to police referrals ($5-$80, depending on the incident). While the UNHCR is not directly responsible for all of this, refugees accused U.N. staff of overlooking obvious corruption, to avoid drawing attention to their own behavior.

Refugees said resettlement, the ultimate prize, can cost 1 million Ugandan shillings to 3.5 million ($268-$938) for a person, $5,000 for a family (or four cows, according to two refugee interviewees, who said the cows are shared between the Ugandan authorities and the UNHCR).

In each location, the language of bribery is different. In Dadaab, several refugees alleged, UNHCR staff and other officials seeking bribes will say, "You ought to work hard for your case."

"Kito kidogo," Swahili for "something small" — or "supporting your documents" — is requested in Kakuma. "Can you get some water for me?" one refugee said he was asked by an official seeking money.

In Nakivale, the demand is often a more blatant, "Give me something." In other instances, staff have instructed refugees to "speak well," or asked for "soda," "airtime" or a "good report" — all code for cash bribes.

"It's a systematic thing," a member of the Somali Bantu minority ethnic group said sitting outside his Dadaab shelter. "You go to the (UNHCR) gate and are turned back multiple times, so you start asking why. Someone tells you who to go to. (That person will) ask: 'Do you have anything so I can make life easy for you?'

"They hang around outside the UNHCR gates like hawkers," he said.

A busy street inside the Dadaab refugee camp. Sally Hayden

Another Bantu member, in his late 20s, demonstrated a particular handshake he said is needed to get through the main UNHCR gate in Dadaab. It involved 100 or 200 Kenyan shillings ($1-$2) folded under the thumb and then slipped to the guards, employees of the multinational security firm G4S. "I had to shake hands because I was in need," the Bantu said of a recent visit.

G4S management denied widespread corruption at Dadaab.

"We do not tolerate corruption or abuse and all allegations are thoroughly investigated," Iain Thomson, director of manned security services operations for G4S Kenya, said. "We work closely with UNHCR and partners to ensure refugees know how to report any incidents of corruption, including a recent radio interview which was broadcast to the whole camp."

In each camp or group of refugees, the names of UNHCR employees who will help for a price are passed around friends and neighbors looking for an escape route, they said.

In Nakivale, multiple refugees accused UNHCR staff members Henry Bataringaya and Peter Ssenteza of repeatedly demanding bribes and targeting the most vulnerable among them, including sexual violence survivors. (Ssenteza has since moved from Nakivale to Tanzania, where he continues to work for the UNHCR.) Kamushaka Manasee Chalangati, who was employed by UNHCR partner agencies GIZ and the American Refugee Committee, was accused by eight refugees of working as a broker for UNHCR staff and taking hefty sums from many refugees, before disappearing without fulfilling the promises he had made them.

"Henry, Peter and Manasee, if you pay them, you can get anything," a Kenyan now working as a driver back in his home country said. According to the Kenyan, he moved to Nakivale in 2004, pretended to be Somali to get resettlement to the U.S., and personally paid Ssenteza. "My children were fake. I paid $1,500 in Nakivale to get refugee status and was there from 2004 to 2011. My wife wants me to go back and continue it. My case is still pending."

A Congolese refugee, also in Nakivale, said he paid almost $1,000 in total to Manasee, of which, he quoted the latter as saying, $400 would go to a named UNHCR staff member. The next day, the refugee said, he received a call from the named person, and was told to come to the UNHCR's office, "which means he got the money," the refugee deduced.

Though he got the meeting, his case has again stalled, he said.

As this reporter watched and listened, the refugee made a telephone call to a number he said belongs to Manasee, put him on the speaker, and asked if he could have his money back. "Do you mean that all the money I paid went for nothing and was wasted just like that?" he asked.

"Don't worry. I'll call my guy and they'll come back to you," the person on the phone replied. This reporter later contacted the same number. The man who answered confirmed he was Manasee, while other refugees who knew him independently identified the picture on his WhatsApp account as him. Manasee confirmed he had worked in Nakivale, but said he had never taken money from refugees, saying he had never even had the opportunity to do so. "From my side, it's 100 percent no," he said.

Refugees crowd around a UNHCR field office in the Dadaab refugee camp. Sally Hayden

Contacted through their UNHCR emails, and then by phone, both Ssenteza and Bataringaya directed this reporter to the UNHCR's internal investigations body, the inspector general's office, or the IGO.

Bataringaya said he had already previously been investigated and cleared of corruption charges, while Ssenteza wouldn't confirm whether he had been investigated. He contended that refugees make false allegations, and that the UNHCR's staff should have the right to sue refugees who accuse workers of wrongdoing.

"All these allegations you see are not new," Ssenteza said. "You know what refugees do, when they see UNHCR staff that don't bend towards maybe what they want to be done for them ... they can sometimes try to break them down by making allegations."

He said the UNHCR has adequate "checks and balances" through the IGO, to which refugees are encouraged to report wrongdoing.

"It's not just a matter of mentioning names, because refugees can come up and mention names of all people in resettlement. So, does that mean you fire the whole unit just because their names are mentioned?"

"A refugee can defame you. Come up with your name, throw it out there and there is no repercussion for that refugee for giving false information," Ssenteza said. "There needs to be accountability for refugees too. I think the staff who is defamed should be able to take up legal action against a refugee."

'When you ask her why she agreed, she will just cry'

For women, there are other ways to pay.

A single Somali mother in her 20s, who asked to be called Amina, said she was 13 when her mother sent her to find out whether their family was being considered for resettlement. She had already dropped out of school to work, earning a meager sum to support her siblings. At a UNHCR field office in Dadaab, she approached a staff member, whom she identified. This reporter could not contact the man, so he is not being named here, though his name was sent to UNHCR spokespeople and confirmed with other former staff members with whom he had worked there.

Amina says the staff member beckoned her into his office and locked the door, before giving her two options: pay $3,500 or have sex with him to "help" her case.

"I told him: 'I don't have the money and can't allow you to use my body. Can you just help me as a refugee?'" she remembered. "He laughed it off and told me, 'If you can't do it, there are many people in the queue waiting.'"

Amina claims the UNHCR staff member then grabbed her by the neck before pushing her out of the office.

"It affected me a lot psychologically, and my mom was so heartbroken about U.N. services she told me to never go back," she said.

Amina still lives in Dadaab and is too frightened to complain outright.

"Fear is a triangular thing. The (refugee) card might be canceled, then they can use the police to arrest us for being illegal, the police will torture us," she said, sitting under a tree far from her dwelling, where she worried people might report her for speaking to a journalist. "When we try to convince people to protest in large numbers they just say the reprisal won't be worth it."

"Money and sex, they're always there for people to take advantage of, people who want favors," said a mother who asked to be called Fatima and also knew of instances in which this had happened.

The former U.N. contractor who allegedly collected bribes for the UNHCR's staff members in Dadaab said it was an open secret that some U.N. staff were exploiting refugee women, and sometimes ended up impregnating or marrying them. "He will take advantage, just because he has a big office. Maybe he can do nothing, but he will pretend for her he can do the best."

Later, "when you ask her why she agreed, she will just cry," he said.

Stolen identities

Many refugees who cannot pay bribes said their personal cases, including detailed interviews and fraught histories establishing a need for resettlement, were stolen by others who can afford to skip the queue to a new life. Some report going to the UNHCR after years of interviews and other procedural checks, only to be told they had already resettled, leading them to conclude someone else had gone abroad using their identity.

A shop at the market in the Dadaab refugee camp. Sally Hayden

"UNHCR workers will tell you you've already traveled. Sometimes, they try to cover it up by giving you a fresh case," one Somali woman in Dadaab said.

Refugees in Kenya, Uganda, Yemen, Ethiopia and Libya said being resettled on someone else's case, after they've done the grunt work and initial interviews, substantially raises the cost of the payment demanded. The former U.N. contractor and middleman in Dadaab agreed. He said that it costs 3 million to 7 million Kenyan shillings ($29,250-$68,270) to buy an identity right at the end of the UNHCR process, when cases move over to potential host governments for vetting. "Urban refugees in Nairobi who have money will replace those in Dadaab or Kakuma," he said.

An Eritrean refugee, who spent time in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said a close friend did just that, making multiple trips from the city to a rural refugee camp to interview under another person's name, before traveling to the U.S. "I confirm (it) and I saw it, but many people are doing (it) like this." He said his friend paid $14,000 to a broker, which was transferred to a UNHCR staff member after he departed.

Pouilly, the UNHCR's spokesperson, said biometric registration is now used in all stable operations where the UNHCR operates, including Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, to prevent identity fraud.

"Biometric registration makes theft of identity virtually impossible and biometric screening of refugees is done at various stages of the resettlement process, including right before departure," she said.

Refugees in Kenya and Uganda said they are aware the UNHCR has been collecting more biometric data in the past year or so, but while they agreed it is a step toward tackling fraud, they said any such change leads to an increase in other methods of cheating.

A broken system

Hamdi Abdullahi was rejected for resettlement by the U.S. government "due to credibility issues and a lack of refugee claim," according to UNHCR, though the rest of her family, who were in a linked case, were accepted. Afterward, the illiterate mother says Momanyi pressured her into signing a form, telling her it meant she could leave for the U.S. with her family. She said she was never given a copy and soon after she signed it, her children left without her.

A current UNHCR resettlement staff member, who reviewed the evidence and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Abdullahi's case could have been tampered with. The document she said she was tricked into signing could have been a "resettlement consent form for nonaccompanying parent," a copy of which the UNHCR would not have been obliged to provide her.

"He's been running riot for years," the resettlement staff member said of Momanyi. "The system is broken. Corruption is not being dealt with."

Pietro Fossati, a UNHCR resettlement officer in Dadaab, downplayed the significance of any possible interference in Abdullahi's case. Whether or not corruption took place, it would not have changed the outcome of Abdullahi's application for resettlement, he said, because the U.S. government had the final say.

Pietro Fossati, a UNHCR resettlement officer in Dadaab. Sally Hayden

Fossati then said he would make sure Abdullahi is invited in by the UNHCR for a counseling session, though, at the time of publication, five months after the interview with him, she says she still hasn't been contacted.

Both Fossati and Assadullah Nasrullah, an associate external relations officer in Dadaab, denied ever hearing of Momanyi, who departed Dadaab in 2016. Another UNHCR Dadaab staffer, speaking privately, said this is impossible, given that Momanyi overlapped at least two years with Nasrullah.

No review of Momanyi's work has taken place, they said. And while refugees and former U.N. contractors in Dadaab say they were made to believe the agency had fired Momanyi for corruption, he is actually still employed in a senior UNHCR role in Shire, Ethiopia, where he continues to deal directly with vulnerable refugees' cases.

"Fraud, unfortunately, it's a cancer affecting anybody and you can never be sure that you can eliminate (it)," Fossati said. "What we are doing, UNHCR is already doing, is putting in place measures mitigating the possibility of fraud taking place and having an effective response and measure. The fact that certain staff have been dismissed or sanctioned or so on, it's a sign the machine is working."

Corruption and guilt

In Dadaab, outside of the UNHCR's heavy gates, Abdullahi's nightmare is far from over. She has begun to chew khat, a leafy stimulant, to numb the pain of losing her children. She picks up her cellphone and smiles at photos of them on WhatsApp, her bloodshot eyes briefly gleaming, before she begins to talk about how she doesn't want to die in a refugee camp.

"I'd rather die in my country than a foreign land," she said.

While she's glad her children are living in the U.S. with opportunities they could never have dreamed of in Dadaab, she longs to be with them.

"I don't sleep at night," she said. "Here it's all corruption, there's no rights for women and children."

Meanwhile, the former broker who once collected bribes for the UNHCR's staff, amassing enough to buy himself a nice car, said he can no longer look at the refugees he once coerced into paying. The misery of their lives makes him feel too guilty.

Eventually, he said, he realized many of the refugees who paid were never even resettled, just had their cases moved along a few stages. They began to get angry, and he did, too.

"These people — they are so hungry. They fled from Somalia, they get a lot of problems, they saw their father die. Everyone wants to get resettlement," he said. "In this world, nobody will tell you this thing is corruption. Someone will just tell you this is a deal, and a good deal."

"I don't even want to remember this story. I don't want to talk about it. … I'm not feeling good to talk about this, I'm feeling bad. You know [former collaborators] will advise you, they will tell you, if you report, you'll be the one punished, because you were helping him. Even the police are corrupted," he continued.

"My mother told me, even if it's true, it's not good ... for me to expose everything," the former bag man said. "If you're someone in a glass house, don't throw stones."

This report was produced in collaboration with 100Reporters, a nonprofit investigative news organization, and Journalists for Transparency, an initiative hosted by the International Anti-Corruption Conference Series and Transparency International.