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24-11-2023
MOGADISHU: At a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of Baidoa city in southwest Somalia, Halima Abdi, 57, walks through the flooded compound to access her makeshift house. It is partly submerged in the water, which had forced her to leave the previous day.
Most of her neighbors have left to seek shelter in Baidoa and, as she stands in the almost-empty camp of scattered shanty houses, she checks to see what is left after the flood swept away her belongings.
“We were forced to flee after three days of heavy rain that almost took our lives,” Abdi, a single mother of seven children told media. “We are left with nothing but just the pillars of the house, and the floods swept away all our goods including the utensils, mattress and clothes. I have rescued my children and taken them to a different house in the town.”
Early last year, Abdi sought refuge at the camp to get aid after a severe drought destroyed their maize farm in Manaas village, about 45km (28 miles) south of Baidoa and could barely get anything to feed her children. It was the worst drought the Horn of Africa had experienced in four decades. Since then, she has been dependent on aid in the form of food and medicine to survive.
Today, her fortunes have been dampened again.
“We couldn’t plant anything due to the failed rainfall in four consecutive seasons and that is why we come to the camp looking for a better life. Now it has rained heavily and my makeshift house isn’t there anymore and I literally have to swim back when accessing the main road,” she added.
Climate change has upended lives and livelihoods across the region in the last two years. The United Nations has said 4.3 million people, a quarter of Somalia’s population, are at risk of “crisis-level hunger or worse” this year due to drought and floods.
Kevin Mackey, Somalia country director of the NGO World Vision, has said children are among the most affected groups and are now “at increased risk of illness”.
With these floods following right after the dry spell, the most vulnerable people in Somalia have been hit once again by the latest shocks in a continuing climate crisis. In Dolow town, approximately 250km (155 miles) from where Abdi lives, Heyba Shirar and her four children live in her relative’s house with nowhere else to go.
“I have nothing to feed my children with, I used to run a small restaurant but it’s no longer operational due to the floods and the cost of living is very high since the roads are impassable.” Shirar, 28, told media. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
