Burao, Somaliland: At Nabad iyo Nasiimo camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP) just outside Burao town, Ayan Hersi watches forlornly as her in-law, Abdi Igge, sets sticks in holes he has dug and interweaves them with a secondhand plastic sheet to create a makeshift shelter.
Hersi and her two-children arrived at the camp in the dead of night from Fadumo, 100 kilometers away. She is the latest among 300 families that have been displaced by drought in the last three months and have found refuge at the camp.
“We arrived at three o’clock in the morning by truck. I have four children, but I had to leave two behind with their father and came with the youngest ones, aged three and one. Our family had 220 goats, but they all perished, and I arrived with two female goats that managed to survive,” she says.
The IDP camp currently has 20,000 people and the numbers are swelling. It was established in 2017 by families displaced by drought that year. Current conditions echo those of 2017 when a devastating drought swept through this region, decimating livestock, and triggering a mass exodus of people from rural areas to urban centers in search of food and water.
According to Amina Ahmed, the camp’s village committee member who has been working with local and international agencies to document the arrivals, eight to ten families have been arriving at the camp every day.
“The new arrivals are from areas that are hundreds of kilometers away, like Elafweyn in Sanaag region, Kirir and Higlo villages, and Beledhig village which is on the Ethiopian border. Their concerns are the same - lack of water and food because of the drought. Animals are dying. Some people come with nothing at all. They need shelter, food and utensils to start a new life,” she says. See the full story at Unicef, Somalia
USWO Organization, Somaliland
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