12/07/2011 / SOMALIA
Massive drought forces Somalis to flee their homes
This displaced family told aid workers they fled to Mogadishu hoping to find food after their entire herd died. They have lost three children to malnutrition. Photo courtesy of Phil Moore/Concern Worldwide
Severe drought is forcing Somalis to abandon their homes and travel long distances - often walking for days - in search of food. This is the worst drought in the region for decades: an estimated 10 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan are affected. In Somalia, the situation is made worse by decades of conflict and skyrocketing food prices, forcing many Somalis to flee to refugee camps in neighboring countries.
The conditions are so severe that residents in rural areas are even fleeing to Mogadishu, which has been deeply damaged by years of fighting. In the capital, there is at least food in the markets, though many cannot afford it. With makeshift camps springing up around the city, aid organisations are trying to provide new arrivals with food and better shelters to protect them against the elements. According to local authorities, some 1,500 people are arriving daily, many of them severely malnourished children.
Contributors
“One woman I met walked for ten days, during which she lost three of her six children… She was barely able to speak.”
Austin Kennan is the Horn of Africa regional director for Concern Worldwide. The Dublin-based aid organization has been working in Somalia for 25 years.
It’s a very desperate situation here in Mogadishu. People are literally putting up shelters on the side of roads. And more people keep coming in.
They hear there’s food here. And there is, in the market stalls, but it’s mainly imported – and expensive. People coming to the capital have lost everything. We met one man and his wife who had owned 300 goats and 12 cattle – that’s a lot. That means they were middle class. But they literally lost everything, and had to migrate to Mogadishu, where they’re now living in a shelter they built themselves.
Some people have travelled all the way from the Kenya/Ethiopia border. Some of them have walked the whole way to the capital. One woman I met walked for ten days, during which she lost three of her six children. She was obviously traumatised. She was barely able to speak.
During the famine in 1992, a quarter of a million people died. Our staff working here on the ground full-time says the situation looks nearly as severe now as it did then.
The first thing we do to help new arrivals is provide them with plastic sheets to protect their shelters, as well as blankets because it can get quite cold at night. We give them cooking utensils, pots and pans. We give them food vouchers that they can take to shops with which we’ve made arrangements. There they’ll get flour, sugar, oil, and necessities like that. Distressing numbers of children are malnourished, so our focus is on giving them special nutritional foods based on peanuts.
Mogadishu’s residents are doing their best to help those displaced by the drought, but they’re suffering themselves. The crisis is a combination of three factors: drought, conflict, and a huge jump in food prices. Everyone in Somalia is feeling it.
What aid organisations need to do now is scale up operations, which is a real challenge. If we can get more funding, we can add to staffing, expand programmes and avoid the worst of this crisis. If we don’t, this crisis will get worse.
There’s the immediate situation of trying to save lives, but looking ahead, we know people aren’t going to recover from this drought until at least the end of 2012. So we will need support for long-term work.”
Aid workers take part in Mogadishu relief effort
Muslim Aid Somalia is another aid group that is distributing food and supplies in Mogadishu. The following images show their local team distributing oil, rice and cooking utensils on July 11. All photos courtesy of Muslim Aid.
OXFAM is also working on relief efforts in Mogadishu. Here are some photos their teams published on Flickr :
Photo: HIJRA.
Photo: HIJRA
Photo: HIJRA
Photo: HIJRA
Post written with FRANCE 24 journalist Gaelle Faure.
Comments
This is incredibly sad! It
Submitted by Nordic Track Nate (not verified) on Thu, 11/08/2011 - 17:29.This is incredibly sad! It really makse you appreciate what we have! Thank you for sharing this and bringing more awareness to what is going on out there in the world. More people need to be aware, and we need to join together and do what we can to help!
With millions of Africans
Submitted by Leonid (not verified) on Tue, 19/07/2011 - 07:22.With millions of Africans fighting for their very survival from violence and hunger, the stage is being set for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.
The United Nations has recently released a report that food prices across the world have risen to an all time record high which is part of the problem for the massive hunger that has hit the triangle in Africa where Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia all come together. The reports of millions of Africans fighting for their own survival from hunger are almost unbelievable but may not even tell the whole story.
This area of Africa has long been a major drought area causing both livestock and vegetation to be limited in its production of food stuffs in order to be able to feed people. There are official government reports that the situation is not getting better but instead getting worse and headed for a major human tragedy.
This present scenario is actually a precursor to what Bible prophecy calls for in the end of times. Jesus, in His Olivet Discourse - Matthew 24, told His disciples that hunger and its increase around the world was one of the signs of His Second Coming to Earth. Remember His Second Coming follows 7 years of Tribulation which is horrific judgment on the Earth, which by the way, follows the Rapture of the Church.
The book of Revelation reveals that hunger and famine will increase during this Tribulation period with farmland being burned up, the waters of the Earth being contaminated, and war running rampant across the Earth (Revelation 6:5-6, 8:3-9, 16:19).
What we see happening in the Triangle of Africa today is indeed setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled in a future tomorrow that may well be very soon.
water
Submitted by Anonymejoseph walker (not verified) on Thu, 14/07/2011 - 14:24.Humans always fasinate me,well they ignorance.We spend billions on gas,electric fuel distribution.But water the only major property that life depends upon,there is no major construction or network distribution for agriculture .We relie on nature.And nature can't stand humans they will destroy us, we are they sworn enemies.