(ERGO) – Having killed off his all livestock and forced him into an alternative livelihood as a salt miner, Somalia’s long and devastating drought is now eating away at Mohamed Kasim’s salt business in Gedo region.
Mohamed, 36, has been struggling to feed his six children for the past three months because the ground salt deposits he normally mines cannot be extracted due to the water scarcity in Cusbo.
He has built up loans of $820 since July to provide just one meal a day for his family. He cannot plan to pay off his debts as the rainfall looks set to lapse already, and the next rainy season appears again unpredictable.
“If we were mining the salt, we would pay off the debts, but now the loans are just accumulating. The drought has really affected us,” Mohamed complained.
They are among 1,800 families living in Cusbo, where the main economic output is salt production. Miners rely on rainwater to draw out the salt from caves in the ground, where it dries on the surface and is collected in sacks.
Mohamed owns 125 salt caves in Cusbo and is facing the most difficult time since he started his business.
He began salt mining in 2020 after migrating from Karaban village, five kilometres from Cusbo, when they lost all their livestock to drought.
Some of the salt mine owners have started selling salt that has been kept in storage from previous mining activity.
Abdullahi Faaqid Abdullahi owns 93 salt caves but has not harvested any salt from them for the past six months.
Once or twice a week, he has been buying 40 sacks of salt from people’s stores for 70,000 to 80,000 Somali shillings each ($2.5-3) and traveling to Luq to sell for 140,000-160,000 shillings ($ 5.5-6) per sack.
The small profit margin can only cover his transport costs and a single meal for his family. He took loans of $205 in August and September and is feeling stressed.
“Now life is very difficult. There were days when there was bliss and our children could eat twice a day, but now we only eat once a day,” said Abdullahi, who has a wife and eight children.
Around 300 salt mine workers have been put out of work causing a spike in unemployment in the area. Some of them have migrated way from the district to seek other sources of income.
Ali Hassan, a salt mine labourer, had been harvesting, draining and refining salt for a year. He is now out of work due to the drought and water shortage. His family were pastoralists previously and with no livestock either they now depend on loans to survive.
Ali, 21, used to earn $6-8 a day in the salt mines to support his parents and siblings. However, he has moved to Luq in the hopes of finding work labouring in farm fields.
