(ERGO) – Having just revived his farm after five long years of drought, Salah Adan Ishaq helplessly saw his five-hectares of crops washed away over a matter of hours by raging river Juba floods that struck Bula-Gadud.
Salah received $500 in cash from an aid agency in July to buy seeds and started planting again hoping to restore his family’s livelihood.
Waiting for the approaching, he took 7,000,000 Somali shillings ($270) worth of goods from a local store to feed his family, promising to pay it off from sale of his crops.
Now, seeing that the prospects of getting his money back are bleak, the shop owner has stopped giving them more credit.
“Our farms have been destroyed; we don’t have another farmland. We have got nothing, the people are all in the same situation, there is no one to give us jobs. We don’t know how to describe our situation. We don’t have a farm and we don’t have a plan!” Salah declared in distress.
The father of nine said they managed to salvage 35 kilograms of rice and three litres of cooking oil from the floods and are consuming it sparingly. His biggest worry now is getting food for his children this runs out.
“If the situation remains like this for the next few days, we will have to rush to the displaced people’s camps. We don’t have anything else, I don’t have a day job that I can count on,” he said.
Salah had been forced to labour on other farms in Lower Juba during the years of drought to earn a little income to sustain his family. When they among 280 families were given the gift of cash from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), he felt they had a chance of recovery.
He had been planning to buy more seeds and some livestock after selling his produce.
“I was expecting up to 13 sacks of sesame seeds, 50 sacks of maize, four sacks of beans – that was my estimation,” he said.
Local mother of 10, Gini Ibrahim Osman, is also in despair after the floods destroyed all the maize, beans, tomatoes, pepper, watermelon and coriander she had been growing on her five-hectare farm near the river.
Gini had taken up to nine million Shillings ($350) in loans to provide a living for her family with the hope of repaying everything after reaping her harvest.
She said they had just one sack of maize left that they were using to eat one meal a day.
“When we got the [aid] money, we cultivated the land using machines. We planted maize, and now I only have one sack from what we planted and that is what we are eating,” she said.
Gini was informed by the local store that she will not be getting more loans unless they settle the existing ones.
Her family farm had been bare for a decade due to a combination of the harsh drought and lack of finances.
“Today if I would have got my harvests, I would be well off. We would have got a livelihood and clothes for the children. Its God that gave us yesterday and its God that has taken it,” Gini said.
She said she would have to seek menial jobs like cleaning or construction work to feed her family, as her husband is blind and unable to work.
Her outlook is bleak and she does not think they will ever recover from their losses and debts.
The commissioner of Bula-Gadud, Mohamed Abdullahi Abdulle, told Radio Ergo that 400 farms had been hit by the flood water. He said most of the families were those who recently revived their farms after receiving a gift of seeds.
Mohamed also noted that these farms were adjacent to the river and there was nothing to salvage from the destructive river floods.
“These people are farmers and they lived on their farms. Secondly they were destitute people and we thought they could at last be able to get a stable living. The people included some who were working on the farms earning wages, and some who owned their farms,” the commissioner reported.
