(ERGO) – Hassan Ibrahim Ali, a father of seven, says he is glad to begin his life afresh in the region of his birth after receiving $3,000 cash from the South West government as part of plans to resettle local families recently evicted from Somaliland.
The ministry of planning collected funds from local businesses in Bay region and distributed cash to 224 of the most vulnerable families forcibly evicted from Lasanod in October.
Hassan spent $2,250 on a second hand tuk-tuk taxi. He bought a land with the remaining amount of money and $700 he had with him when he left Lasanod, to build a home for his family, who are currently staying with a relative in Baidoa.
“I haven’t started working yet as I am supervising the building on the land I bought. We have come back to our people and we thank God that we are living a better life now,” Hassan told Radio Ergo, adding that he hopes his new house will be finished within a matter of days.
Hassan, 36, was born in Haween village on the outskirts of Baidoa. The family lived on land owned by relatives and worked as farm labourers. Hassan migrated to Lasanod in 2003 following drought and hardship in the farming sector.
Two of his children were born in Haween while five were born in Lasanod. However, he and his wife and children were forced to leave all their property behind when they were evicted from the north and returned to Baidoa.
“My father taught me how to farm, but when I moved to Lasanod, I learnt how to drive and bought a tuk-tuk. I am now looking forward to adjusting to this new environment,” he said
The expelled families were temporarily placed by the South West authorities in an IDP camp in Baidoa on arrival from Lasanod. Hassan moved out of the camp to stay with relatives but had no chance of building his own home until he received the cash grant.
In Lasanod, he worked for seven years on building sites and saved enough to buy his own tuk-tuk, which he drove for the next 11 years. He hopes to support the family in Baidoa with the replacement tuk-tuk he purchased.
Meanwhile, Nurto Hussein Adan, a mother of five, has started a shop with $500 of the $2,000 she received from the South West ministry on return to Baidoa. She also bought land for the first time with the remaining money in Boonkay neighbourhood in Baidoa, where she put up a temporary hut whilst planning to build a house. She hopes her husband will find work and that she can make some savings from her small business.
“I am so happy to receive this money. I pray to God to bless the people who donated the money. As you can see, I sell tomatoes, sugar, bananas and rice,” she said.
Nurto’s family used to live in Dinsor in Bay region, where they lived on a plot whose owner charged them no rent, as they had no land of their own. However, life became tough after Al-Shabab besieged the town in 2011 causing food shortages and price rises. They migrated to Lasanod, where her husband earned a living as a taxi driver. Nurto, 34, gave birth to all her children in Lasanod.
The director of South West ministry of planning, Isack Mohamoud Mursal, told Radio Ergo that they chose to support the families who returned to the region with nothing to avoid them becoming internally displaced.
“We divided the people into four categories: the first category were individuals whom we paid $1,600, the second were families with two to four members whom we gave $2,140, the third category were families with five to nine members who received $3,000, and the last category were families with more than 10 members whom we gave $3,500,” he explained.
Isack said a committee of government and businesspeople in South West state appointed to coordinate assistance to the families evicted from Lasanod is working to register other families, who have dispersed and are living with relatives in Baidoa. He added that the administration is setting up a government committee to negotiate with Somaliland over the transfer of assets belonging to the evicted families.
