(ERGO) – Financial stress due to aid cuts and economic collapse are causing the break-up of Somali refugee families in Kenya’s Dadaab camps, leaving many women with children abandoned by their husbands.
Khadijo Abdulqadir Adan, a mother of eight, separated from her husband recently and says she is having to face the harsh conditions of camp life entirely on her own. Although her children’s father lives in the same camp, he provides no support.
“Me and my children are in the worst position among the refugees here,” Khadijo said. “I am suffering because the father who should be helping me raise these children has gone off. We are living in misery. Some nights we eat, and some nights we go hungry. The situation is very dangerous.”
Khadijo had been finding jobs washing clothes or cleaning up after construction, but most opportunities have vanished as the camp activity diminished along with the aid cuts.
Other refugee families have no cash to pay for laundry to be done. These days she has been making $2 to $3 a month and has to rely on the kindness of neighbours to share food whenever they can.
The impact on her children’s education is devastating. Four of her children, who were attending Koranic school, have been home for three months because she can’t afford the $23 monthly fee. The other four children enrolled in free primary school are also staying home because they are too hungry to walk to class.
“If I send them to school, they need to eat when they return. If I have nothing for them to eat, what can I do? As I speak to you now, I have nothing to put on the cooking fire. We went to bed hungry last night,” she said.
Khadijo has lived in Dadaab since fleeing with her family from Mogadishu back in 2004. She is also burdened by a $230 debt at a local shop that she can’t see how to repay.
Mother of seven, Fartun Mohamed Adan, 35, is facing a similar struggle. She separated from her husband two months ago following a long period of conflict. Her children now eat only once a day with the money she gets from odd laundry work. Her food aid rations stopped in August 2024.
She described the heartbreak of watching her children go to bed hungry.
“My children and I are suffering terribly,” Fartun said. “There is no one to give us anything. The father is in town [Dadaab], but doesn’t give us a single shilling. When we used to get rice and beans from the aid agencies, the children didn’t feel this hunger. Now we receive nothing.”
“Last night, I sent my children to bed hungry. I went to town to look for work and came back with nothing. They had to sleep on the breakfast I cooked yesterday morning. If a man wouldn’t help me while he lived with me, will he help me now?”
Fartun and her family arrived in Dadaab as refugees fleeing conflict in Jowhar, Middle Shabelle, in 2010.
According to the leaders of Hagadera camp in Dadaab, the scale of family collapse is significant. The camp chairman says that hundreds of families have divorced in the last four months.
Citing community elders and local courts, the camp leader attribute the rise in divorces to high unemployment and increased domestic tension caused by the reduction in aid and economic opportunities.
Abdullahi Mohamed Tifow, a construction worker, told Radio Ergo that he left his wife recently because of being pressured to build a family house. He said he could not raise the money needed.
“I’m a struggling man – the children need school fees, and I don’t have $10,000 to build a house. We are refugees struggling for our daily bread!” Abdullahi said.
He stated that he was still trying to fulfill his parental duties as much as his meagre income allowed.
