More than 400 displaced families in Tawakal camp in the outskirts of Baidoa are facing a severe food shortage.
Radio Ergo’s local reporter, who visited the camp, said most of the displaced came from other parts of Bay region including Qansadheere and Dinsor. He described their living conditions as squalid.
The camp has received no aid for the past two years.
Abdi Mohamed Ishaq, in his eighties, a former farmer from Qansadheere, lives alone in a hut made of old rags and bits of rubbish.
“I have not received any assistance since I came here. Fellow IDPs were able to fend for themselves by getting casual jobs in town but I am very old and can’t move around let alone work. I have no family members either and my life is pathetic,” he told Radio Ergo’s reporter.
Asho Abdi Abdirahman, a widow with nine children, said she had not cooked for her family for several days. The family broke the Ramadhan fast with water, as they had no food.
“We fled our homes due to difficult living conditions caused by conflict and years of famine but the situation we are now in is worse,” she said.
Asho and her nine children squeeze into a tiny hut made of junk.
Bay regional coordinator of social services, Mohamed Ishaq Abukar, said the crisis facing the IDPs was caused by the recent change of guard in the local administration.
Abukar claimed none of the NGOs operating in Baioda had helped.
“We are aware of the needy situation of the IDPs and are doing everything possible to make sure their situation improves especially in this holy month of Ramadan,” he said.
