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Refugees from a persecuted Somali Bantu tribe find homes, help and hope in Columbus Monday, May 17, 2004 Encarnacion Pyle THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Crouched on the floor of a dollar store on the North Side, Fatuma Sheikh suspiciously eyed the hot-pink clothes hangers a social worker had handed her. "Whatever these are, I don’t need them," the Somali Bantu woman said in Maay Maay, her native tongue. "Oh, but you do. All of your clothes are on the floor now," Nadia Kasvin told Sheikh, 38, and four other Bantu women in English. "They’ll help you keep your clothes clean and...

The education of a Somali Bantu family began with the flick of a light switch in a modest little apartment in Rainier Beach. Dark rooms suddenly brightened, revealing objects that put the newly arrived refugees in awe: a stove that produced heat without firewood; a toilet with water coursing through it; a refrigerator with more food than they'd seen in an entire African resettlement camp. Haji Shongolo, who arrived March 31 with his wife and four children, lacked any frame of reference to describe it, other than to say through a translator: "It just seems new. I don't know anything...

This week IOM will fly a further 500 Somali Bantu refugees to the US, where they have been accepted for resettlement. The first charter flight carrying half the group will leave today and the second on Friday. Since May 2003, IOM has facilitated the movement of 304 Somali-Bantu families or 1,427 individuals from Kenya to the US. In March, it plans to organize three more charter flights for 750 more of the group. A persecuted minority of rural farmers in their home country, the Somali Bantus fled Somalia's civil war in 1991 and 1992 and found refuge in Kenya's camps,...