(ERGO) – Ahmed Ali Hashi has seen 19 of his precious camels dying in front of him in the past three weeks and he is worried about the remaining 21 in his herd, as a fatal disease spreads among camels in remote rural areas of central Somalia’s Mudug region.
“First the animal becomes sick and later it stops grazing. Its fur turns black in colour and then it dies,” said Ahmed, describing the symptoms he and other pastoralists have noticed in Qarsoni village, 130 km from Galkayo.
“The liver of the animal is swollen – we realized this after slaughtering the animals.”
Ahmed has been rearing camels for about 20 years. His family, with three daughters and five sons, depend on their livestock for their livelihood. He said nine of his remaining camels have lost their sight and stopped eating. He lost 30 camels earlier in the drought.
He told Radio Ergo that more than 100 camels had died here since the first cases were noted on 27 November.
“The situation has engulfed the area. There are families who are about to move to the town after their all camels died. We have no plan and we have not seen anybody coming to help us,” he said.
A team of veterinarians from Central Regions Livestock Professional Association (CERELPA) visited some of the affected areas on 4 December, according to Fahmo Abdi Hussein, who led the team.
She told Radio Ergo they wanted to assess the situation and diagnose the disease. They travelled for about 100 km in the areas where the camel disease has been reported. They were unable to record officially the number of animals killed by this disease due to the vastness of the and large number of cases.
Fahmo urged the pastoralists to quarantine those animals that showed signs of infection.
“Signs seen on the animal infected by the disease include that the animal will start shivering when it has fever. If it has six to 12 hours of fever, the animal may die,” Fahmo explained.
The disease is likely to hemorrhagic septicemia, which can be prevented by vaccination. However, Fahmo told Radio Ergo they do not have any vaccine available.
The CERELPA team was informed that disease was spreading to new areas in southern parts of Mudug region.
“The best advice we can give to these pastoralists is to isolate the infected animals and the other advice is to seek antibiotic drugs for the infected animals,” Fahmo said.
Abdullahi Sabriye Diriye, a father of 12, is struggling to save his animals from the disease. He lives in Haro village, 145 km from Galkayo town. He told Radio Ergo that the camels are the lifeline of the villagers, although large numbers died in the previous droughts.
“I had 30 camels, six of them died, and the rest are at risk. I am losing hope! In less than 10 days I lost six camels. We only saw veterinarians visiting this area but we have got nothing else,” Abdullahi
He told Radio Ergo that he supports his family with products from the camels. The average daily income from the camels’ milk used to be $7.
“This has affected me very much – these camels were our lifelines. The camels were supporting my four families. Since the outbreak of the disease, we have not had any milk from the camels,” he said.
The disease has killed camels in Elgula, Hadile, Haro, Buro-Adawe, Afgaduudle, and El-ayanle villages in Mudug region.
