This story is part of a special series resulting from a Radio Ergo reporting mission investigating the recent evictions of large numbers of IDPs from government buildings and private land in Mogadishu.
By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble
Saido Osman Qasim was heavily pregnant with her sixth child when armed men in trucks descended on the displacement camp of Warshadaha Caanaha (the former Milk Factory) building one morning in October, and forced them at gunpoint to get out. She and her family had been living in the government-owned building for six years with around 2,000 other displaced people, who had fled from their original homes in various parts of the southern regions due to conflict, drought and famine. “Armed men with big trucks caught us by surprise early in the morning. They began destroying our makeshift houses and pushing people out forcibly,” Saido told Radio Ergo in an interview conducted in another IDP camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
She said the armed men were government soldiers and they paid no attention to the pleas of the people living in the camp, who were crying and begging for time to look for another place to live before being thrown out.“They were firing bullets to create fear in the camp and were shouting ‘Get out …get out now otherwise we will take you out by force’,” Saido recalled. Saido was close to the expected delivery date of her baby, her back ached and she was unable to get up by herself.
Still, one of the soldiers assigned to demolish the houses of the displaced people in the old factory building pushed her to make her stand up. He threatened her, telling her to get out of the building by herself – or he would make her get out. “My children were terrified and kept crying the whole day and we left everything behind including clothes and plastic sheeting. We just escaped with our lives,” she said.
Saido said the displaced occupants of the old Milk Factory building were given no time to dismantle their shelters and gather up their belongings. She also said they had been given no notice or early warning that they were going to be evicted, and therefore no time to find an alternative location to settle with their families and belongings.
Mogadishu’s Deputy Mayor, Iman Nur Icar, told Radio Ergo in an interview that the government had indeed organised the eviction of the IDPs from the former Milk Factory on October 7. However, he said the displaced families were given about 15 days warning in which to find and move to another location. “It’s their [the IDPs’] responsibility to find another location,” Icar said. “But of course we sometimes try to get alternative places and help according to our capacity,” he added.
Saido, originally from Ferfer village on the Ethiopian border in Hiran region, said her five children were born and grew up in the camp and had nowhere else they could call home. When asked if he thought it was right that a pregnant woman be forced out of her home in that way, Icar said he knew nothing about her individual case, but insisted that displaced people generally must evacuate all government buildings including those destined for use as ministries, military bases and schools.
Ten days after the forced eviction from Warshada Caanaha, Saido gave birth to her baby, without any medical assistance at the delivery, in a place out in the open near the newly created Anfac camp on the outskirts of the city. “In Mogadishu, a hospital and small health centre were close to our camp and we had access to them. Here, there is nothing! you can’t even find a nurse, forget about professional medical staff. But with the help of other women here in the camp, I delivered safely,” Saido said.
In the immediate aftermath of the eviction, Saido had to stay out in the open during the daytime and squeeze into space offered at night by other IDPs who have already managed to reconstruct makeshift shelters. Anfac camp hosts more than 170 families who were recently evicted from camps in Mogadishu city. It has no health centre, no doctors, no pharmacy with basic medical supplies. According to UNHCR, more than 36,000 displaced people have been evicted from private land and government buildings between January and October 2014. When Radio Ergo asked about that number, the deputy mayor said it was “over exaggerated.” “There is no official head-count or facts that could indicate the exact number of the displaced people from Mogadishu. But I can tell you the number [from UNHCR] is not true and it’s probably overestimated and over exaggerated,” Icar said. However, he said the government was planning to start a mapping exercise to determine the numbers of displaced people living in Mogadishu city and its environs.
The huge problem facing people like Saido now is not only the desperate need for immediate shelter, water and food, but the inability to be able to earn any money through small jobs to make a living because of Anfac’s distance which is about 15km from the city centre. “I used to feed my children from my sweat by going out every morning and looking for any jobs to do from cooking, washing clothes to baby-sitting for richer families,” she said. But there are no jobs available to her today, as everybody in the Anfac area is displaced, or simply poor. “The transport would cost me about a dollar a day from my camp to Mogadishu and back. And I am sure I will not be able to raise that money,” she told Radio Ergo, as she cradled her 10 day-old baby girl on her lap.
This story is part of a special series resulting from a Radio Ergo reporting mission investigating the recent evictions of large numbers of IDPs from government buildings and private land in Mogadishu.
