(ERGO) – Food shortage has become acute for the livestock and fishing community living in the wind-swept coastal village of Dhinowda, in central Somalia’s Mudug region, as piles of sand blocking the main road are hampering the supply of vital goods.
Since November, powerful offshore winds have forced huge amounts of sand across the small settlement, burying homes and making movement extremely difficult.
Instead of three trucks coming in a month from the northern port of Bosasso, there is just one that can only reach the edge of the village where it drops food such as maize, beans and sorghum and other supplies that have been ordered.
Hinda Sheikh Ali said her family of 10 children, one of around 1,300 families living in Dhinowda, is struggling to get enough food. The transporters have doubled the cost for delivering one sack of food from four to eight dollars.
“The road has been blocked and the food is getting very expensive. We haven’t been able to sell off any of our livestock due to the drought and we depend on livestock and the ocean for a living,” Hinda told Radio Ergo.
Hinda’s husband used to earn around $15 a day fishing, but in the last three months fish stocks have been low and the catch has been poor.
Local youths have been volunteering to clear the sand off the road as the food trucks approach to enable them to enter the village.
However, the food usually gets dropped about three kilometres away, or wherever the truck can manage to reach. Locals have to pay an extra dollar to porters to deliver the food to their house.
Hinda’s 22-year-old son put aside his fishing gear to make a few dollars as a porter whenever a truck arrives, making around $20 doing deliveries.
Water in the village is also a huge problem. The mounting sand dunes have buried the water wells leaving them blocked or contaminated.
“There is soil in our well and the water has become muddy. It is also blocked by sand piled up all around it,” Hinda complained.
Small vehicles deliver water to Dhinowda at $10 a barrel, which is unaffordable for her family.
Their cement house has also been submerged by sand dunes. After borrowing $750 from relatives, they built a two-room house nearby made of iron-sheets so it can be easily dismantled and moved again if the sand encroaches further.
Hinda has no idea how they will repay their debts.
Some families have moved away to higher ground, and others have left the village completely.
Sayid Sheikh Abdullahi runs a small pharmacy in the village. But as few of the local fishermen and pastoralists can afford to buy his products, his business is at a standstill. Over the past three months, he has bought food supplies on credit to feed his family of 17 people and has accumulated debts of $477.
Dhinowda local commissioner, Hassan Abdi Mohamed, told Radio Ergo that the situation continues to worsen. He noted that around 50 families have migrated to Galkayo, Af-barwaqo, and Mogadishu. Most of those remaining in the village are short of food.
