(ERGO) – Around 114 families evicted at short notice from Moora-Hagar camp in the southern Somali city of Baidoa have lost their sources of livelihood and are struggling to keep their families fed.
The land owners, who initially allowed these families to settle on the land, issued them with one week’s notice to vacate, threatening to burn down the houses if people didn’t move out on 21 February.
Most of the families left behind their huts made of pieces of cartons, old clothes and tree branches, as the material couldn’t be reused for making new shacks. They carried their few belongings only and moved to Dawle camp, a few kilometres away.
Ali Ibrahim Daud, 42, his wife and six children have been living with their relatives in Dawle camp since being evicted.
“If you see the children you’d think they’ve been sick for a long time, this is because of the challenges and lack of food, there isn’t much we could do. That is our situation, sometimes we get food and sometimes we don’t. I am struggling and I don’t have anything, the circumstances have been tough,” he said.
He and wife sleep outside while the children sleep in one of the relatives’ rooms. They eat what little food their hosts can afford to share with them.
Ali hasn’t been able to earn the $4 or so he used to earn from jobs on construction sites near the camp and his wife is also not earning any more.
“My wife used to leave early in the morning and come back at noon with the wood she’d collected to sell the following day, but the place where she collected the firewood from is too far from here,” he said.
Ali’s family joined Moora-Hagar camp in 2021 after fleeing from Kooni, 40km from Baidoa, where their herd of 190 goats died off during severe droughts in 2020 and 2021. Their four-hectare farm also failed due to lack of rainfall.
They were not paying any land rent in Moora-Hagar, although the camp had no water, health, or education services and amenities.
Adan Mohamed Nur, a Koranic schoolteacher, and his family of nine children also moved to Dawle camp, which houses 200 existing families.
As Adan lost his income teaching 60 children in the Moora-hagar earning $90-100 a month, he is struggling with food and other basic needs.
He has taken 75 kgs of food including flour, rice and sugar on credit from local stores but this may not even last them for 10 days.
“I’m asking anyone who is in a better position than us to help us with one dollar,” he appealed.
They get water from a privately owned borehole costing 1,000 Somali shillings for 20 litres. His children sleep rough under a tree instead of in their former two-room shelter.
“The children are getting cold, they don’t have food, they don’t have proper bedding. It is hard to set up new huts, it takes five to six days,” he said.
Adan, 47, joined the camps in Baidoa in 2020 after leaving Sarman in Bakool region, where their four-hectare farm growing maize and beans failed due to erratic rain patterns.
