Drought-hit farming and herding families from villages in Lower Shabelle crowd into a camp in Afgoye

(ERGO) – Rural families displaced from Basra, Alifow, and Baqdaad in southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region after poor rains spoilt their crops and killed off their livestock are crowding into a small displacement camp near Afgoye, where there are no services and no sources of income for them.

Hamdi Muhudin Ali, 51, with her 10 children abandoned by their father and her elderly relative, often go hungry since they’ve been in Sooglow camp since August. Her children trudge into town to beg, bringing home a couple of dollars to buy food and firewood.

“The help we receive from people is not enough for more than one meal. We have nowhere else to get anything from, and no one in our family has a job.,” she said.

Hamdi has sought any work available in town, including washing clothes, but found none. Her eldest child is 12, and none is old enough for casual work like quarrying.

She and her family reached Afgoye from Basra by donkey cart after seeking help from people they knew. The journey took them seven days and nights. Her family, who were pastoralists, lost 50 goats and cattle after water shortages, lack of pasture and unfamiliar diseases left them unable to sustain their livestock.

A privately owned borehole five kilometres from Sooglow camp provides free water to displaced people, but she has to carry a jerrycan on her back every day. She can’t afford the $0.25 charged for a 20-litre container at boreholes closer to the camp. The family uses the water only for drinking and cooking and can’t afford to bathe or wash clothes.

Shelter is also poor in the camp. “During the day, we stay under the shade of trees, and at night we sleep in shelters made from sticks and old sacks that people have helped us with,” Hamdi said.

“We can’t sleep because of the cold at night or the heat during the day. We left our homes and everything we had because we had nowhere to take them. We also have no toilet and use open areas.”

Six of Hamdi’s children were attending Koranic school in Basra for a combined $6 a month, but she can’t afford the $18 fee per child at schools in Afgoye. She has a $180 debt for food and clothes and can’t repay the shopkeepers who keep asking her for their money back.

Also in the camp is Ajabo Mohamed Taakooy, 39, who spent her entire life in the countryside and had never been displaced before. Her family fled after water shortages affected their three-hectare farm in Alifow.

She only knows farming and hasn’t been able to find jobs around Sooglow. Her family of 11 depends on cooked food from people already settled in the camp.

“We eat once or twice a day when our neighbours help us with food. Their assistance is not enough because a person gives us only what they can spare from their own family, but it is what keeps us going,” she told Radio Ergo.

Ajabo’s husband hasn’t managed to find any casual work in the town. Her children are struggling to adapt to the camp conditions and lack of basic services after living independently on the farm.

“We used to cook or sell whatever we harvested from our farm. If you didn’t get anything from your own farm, you could even take something from a neighbour’s farm to cook for your children, but the lack of rain affected all the farms,” she said.

They last planted five months ago but lost tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, coriander, sorghum and maize to water shortages, after investing $380 on seeds and cultivation.

The sorghum and maize she had been feeding her children ran out at the end of July, forcing them to abandon the farm and seek refuge in the camp.

The chairwoman of Sooglow camp, Hodan Ahmed Ali, said 300 families had arrived there since August, mostly women, children and the elderly. The camp administration had provided what assistance it could, but they couldn’t meet the scale of the needs.

“These are vulnerable people who do not have basic services,” she said. “They have no water, regular food, adequate shelter, education or healthcare.” She added that the camp was very small and was already overcrowded.

“We are appealing to humanitarian organisations to assist these people,” she said. Although the seasonal rains had begun in parts of the region, these displaced families had neither livestock to support them nor the money to return to cultivate their farms.