Rains in Bay region are worsening the living conditions of thousands of internally displaced families in camps around the regional capital Baidoa. Heavy rains have fallen over seven days, flooding the camps and destroying dozens of tents and makeshift houses on the outskirts of the town.
The families, who fled from conflict in Hudur, Wajid, Burdhubo and surrounding villages in Bakool and Gedo, have been living in hastily made huts built from cardboard and tree branches. “Our tents have been washed away by the floods and we have nowhere else to go but just to sit here and wait for help,” a mother of six children, Fadumo Sharif Mohamed, told Radio Ergo.
Mohamed is among about 4,000 displaced people, mostly women and children, who came to Baidoa from the south-western regions of Bakol and Gedo, where the Somali National Army and African Union forces launched an offensive against the militant group Al-Shabaab. “We have received no food since we came here, but we are still hoping,” Mohamed said.
Another old woman, Edebo Abdirahman, said to be 100 years old,said the weather was making life very difficult. “We have no food, no tents and no clothes and I am very sick from the cold,” Abdirahman told Radio Ergo’s local reporter.
Radio Ergo’s reporter, who visited several camps in the town, said the heavy rains and wind, combined with the poor shelters and sanitation in the camps, could have severe negative impacts on the IDPs’ health.
