More than 150 displaced farmers with their families are asking for help to go back to their homes and farmlands after more than two decades spent living in the port town of Kismayo, the regional capital of Lowe Juba region.
The IDPs have been in Borow camp, one of more than 55 IDP camps hosting thousands of displaced people in the town.
Khadijo Hassan, spokesperson for the IDPs in Kismayo, said the farmers had fled from their original homes in Bay, Bakool and Jubba regions due to conflict, drought and famine that rocked the country in early 1990s.
“We have no life here and we left our farmlands so many years ago,” she told Radio Ergo’s local reporter, adding that they wanted to go back home to harvest their farmlands.
Mohamed Haji, one of the displaced farmers, said they all depended on begging and had no other means of survival. He urged Somali leaders and aid agencies to help them move back to their farmlands. “Going back and farming again is much better than the life we live here today,” Haji said.
Muhyadin Ahmed Roble
