(ERGO) – Hunger has cast a dark shadow over the lives of Somali mother Fadumo Abdi Mohamed and her family, as five of her children are showing signs of malnutrition and have fallen sick.
“My children are very weak, and their conditions are similar. There is disease, and at this moment there is fear of children dying,” said Fadumo, a pastoralist in drought stricken Laqlajisle in central Somalia’s Mudug region.
Having always depended on their livestock for a living, the long drought has put this family’s entire future in jeopardy.
Fadumo is struggling to provide a lifeline for her 11 children, while also keeping her last remaining animals alive in this 90 kilometres northeast of Jarriban.
“There are no cars to transport people…the nearest hospital is in Garowe or Galkayo. People use their own money for transport, but we are destitute. My three-year-old daughter doesn’t sleep at night and it’s painful, she has not seen a doctor,” said Fatumo, expressing her helplessness.
“There is famine and disease, there is also water and food shortage, we are in a difficult situation. Every family might be a little different but we are all vulnerable, we just pray to God.”
Fatuma has been running all the household duties as her husband has become elderly and can barely help them. They now depend on irregular money from their relatives while also occasionally buying food on credit from local shops.
“We are sometimes lucky to get tea and rice. Before we used to slaughter our livestock or get milk to add to our tea but we don’t have that now. We have never seen such a difficult situation,” she said.
Many of the residents in Laqlajisle are facing similar scarcity. The area vice–commissioner, Mursal Abdulle Qalafe, said that to him the situation could be described as famine.
He is worried that people will die if the prevailing hardships continue while the inflation and drought conditions worsen.
“According to our assessment the number of affected people has reached 15,000. We are urgently calling for humanitarian intervention to avert the famine and disease outbreaks,” he said.
Many pastoralist families migrated to coastal areas that received rainfall during the previous deyr season, seeking water and pasture. The influx of people into areas like Laqlajisle added further stress on resources that were quickly depleted.
“Many people have arrived in this area, many pastoralist families have come from different areas including some that migrated from Ethiopia, and now the ‘gu rainfall has failed. That has worsened the situation,” Mursal said.
Another anxious mother, Muhubo Abdisalam Sheikh, with a family of 17 people, told Radio Ergo’s local reporter that only 100 goats had survived from her herd of 300. Her remaining animals are thin and cannot be sold off.
“We don’t eat anything during the day, we cook and eat plain rice at night, during the day we just hold on to tea,” she said.
Muhubo said they could not find water or fodder for their livestock and many of them had died of starvation. She said this was the worst drought she has seen.
“We have seen drought before, and we have lost livestock, but we haven’t seen drought that affects human life to this magnitude,” she declared.
