“We can get seeds, but it is impossible for us to buy fuel at that exorbitant price,” he told Radio Ergo.

Ahmed, who works with a group of other farmers, harvested some maize and tomatoes in February, but the harvest was poor because there was little water available from the river Shabelle.

He is among many farmers in Hiran’s Beletweyne district who have downed their tools since a drum of fuel more than doubled from $120 to $245. Fuel is required for the farm generators that pump water to the fields as well as for tractors.

“The produce from these farms started decreasing from March this year. We have a big challenge. Also there are locusts that finish our farms very quickly and this has made us have to replant again from zero. What else can we do? Nothing. These farms are the only livelihood we have,” he said.

Ahmed has been penniless for the last three months. “We get food on credit from a friend’s shop. I am unable to buy fuel though. My debt stands at $4,000 to $5,000 and we are getting no income from the farm.”

He owes $40 for his children’s education fees at secular and religious schools.

Mounting farmers’ debts

Another farmer in Beletweyne, Macaane Mohamud Daahir owns nine hectares in Jiiqle, four kilometres from town. Despite incurring huge debts, he says he is continuing to farm in the hope of earning some income to keep the family going.

Dahir planted grass on his farm during the harvest that preceded the drought and was able to sell the grass to livestock keepers during the prolonged drought. This kept him and his family afloat.

Agricultural expert, Abdihakim Omar Yussuf, urged farmers to plant crops like watermelons during this period as they consume little water and can withstand the harsh weather.

He also advised farmers to look beyond the current ways of farming and embrace other forms of energy, in particular solar power, to avoid reliance on unaffordable fuel.

Hiran farmers have undergone a raft of challenges including the prolongation of the drought, the drying up of the river which is their primary water source, and plagues of destructive locusts destroying crops and vegetables.

Hundreds of small farmers have abandoned their farms and are now displaced in Beletweyne town without an alternative source of livelihood.

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Last year he was attacked twice by a hyena as he walked home from a local shop in the dark. In 2018, he was hospitalised for two months after being bitten by a snake he stepped on at night.

“The snake was hidden in a dark place,” he told Radio Ergo. “The wild animal attacks in our village were all because of the darkness.”

The agro-pastoralist residents of this and five other rural villages around Ugaas Madow, 95 kilometres west of Berbera, are now feeling safer and socialising outside in the evening, thanks to lighting installed by Mohamed Hassan Dirir, a former government officer and aspiring politician from Hargeisa.

After spending a night in Ugaas Madow in 2018, where he has relatives, Mohamed experienced the enveloping darkness that limited people’s lives and determined to do something about it.

“I decided to light up the dark town and surrounding villages. I didn’t have any knowledge about solar streetlights, so I researched the best way to connect lights in a rural village when I returned to Hargeisa,” he told Radio Ergo.

Mohamed, 35, who was director at Somaliland’s ministry of water resources until September, began working on the project and gathering money from his own resources. He succeeded in completing the installation of 50 lamp posts with solar panels in the six villages in October.

In Diri-maraa, night life is now thriving with elders and youth out socialising well into the night. Saleban, a father of six, said the elders used to stay at home after nightfall, watching over their livestock for fear of wildlife attacks.

“There haven’t been any wildlife attacks in our village since the lights were installed,” said Saleban, who has a herd of 50 goats.

“People are selling goods under the light while others are out reading the Koran by the streetlight. The youth gather under the light to play ludo games in groups while the elders play chess,” he said.

In Go’da yar village, Abdi Sugule Egal said the lights had helped to reduce road accidents. Vehicles often used to veer off the road at night.

“The village is now well lit and night travellers can see it from far, they don’t get lost on the way anymore,” he said.

He added: “Personally, the streetlight has helped me, as the garbage that used to be dumped by locals outside my home has stopped. People can see each other now!”

Abdi, a father of five who herds 84 goats and seven cows in the village, believes his livestock will be safer from wildlife attacks. He told Radio Ergo that his livestock were attacked five times by wild animals this year, and four goats were killed. He stated that he now sleeps peacefully at night without worrying about his livestock.

Villagers in Go’da Weyn, Biyo-fadhiisanka, Il-carmo and Cillaan are similarly welcoming the solar street lighting.

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With the camps in Dadaab set to close in June 2022, there is also a severe shortfall in donor funding for essential services for the more than 200,000 Somali refugees living in the complex.

“This food ration is not enough for us to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner,” complained Adar. “I have a disabled daughter and an elderly mother-in-law, who can’t stay hungry. The children who go to school need three meals a day.”

Adar, whose family arrived in Dadaab in 2011 fleeing drought in southern Somalia’s Kismayo district, have no sources of food or income apart from the aid distributed by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). In September, WFP announced a reduction of 48 per cent in food aid for the 440,000 refugees in Kenya, including the camps in Dadaab and Kakuma.

Adar said her family was already reeling from the impact of COVID19, which left her husband jobless. He was working as a labourer in the camp market, but business activities shrank drastically when the pandemic began.

“Before COVID19 happened, I used to cook three meals a day for the children. Their father was working, and he used to come back home with good sums of money. But since COVID19 struck, all that has stopped,” she said.

Adar has accumulated a debt of 10,000 Kenya shillings (100 dollars) at the local food store and cannot take any more food until she pays it off. They are down to two meals a day.

She is thankful to have received 4,800 Kenya shillings in cash aid for the eight family members registered on her WFP card, calculated at 600 per person. She wonders if that will also be reduced or cut in future.

Suldano Ibrahim Abdulle, a divorced mother of four, received the news of the aid cuts with shock. She was already struggling. Her food card has five registered beneficiaries – herself and the four children – but she is also supporting four relatives who are not registered.

“The food ration we received used to last us for 30 days, when we cooked lunch only, without breakfast and supper. We are very worried about the food ration cut. The little we have received now won’t last us for the next two months,” she said.

Suldano has lived in Hagadera since fleeing conflict in Mogadishu in 2011. The four distant relatives she is now hosting arrived after the registration of new arrivals in Dadaab had stopped four years ago.  These relatives from Mogadishu have no close family in the camp and no other means of support.

“Since I can’t afford to buy meat, I usually make soup from the beans by adding a little salt and oil so that the children can eat it with pasta, rice or even sometimes with pancakes. But I’ve only received six kilograms of beans, which is not enough at all,” Suldano said. “I can’t afford potatoes, tomatoes or chicken stew, let alone milk for the tea,” she said.

WFP is seeking $40.4 million from donors to continue supporting the refugees in Kenya and warned that it may be forced to halt assistance altogether by the end of the year.

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She was among the 25 families in Shareeco IDP camp to move into their own homes on 1 October, after the camp community raised funds for building through a rotating savings scheme.

“I never thought I would ever get a house of my own. I am happy that as a group we have managed to build houses for each other. None of us could have built ourselves a house on our own,” Adar said.

The 100 families in Shareeco began contributing three dollars every Friday in April. They were spurred to build roofed houses after strong winds in January destroyed many of their huts. By August they had raised enough to start building.

The Shareeco land was gifted to the IDPs by the owner, a businessman in Beledweyne, so it was a safe investment.

“We didn’t have a proper house to shelter from the winds, so we used to suffer. I didn’t even have a place to light a cooking fire out of the wind,” said Adar, a grandmother taking care of her four granddaughters, whose mother died.

Adar was displaced from Buq-aqable village in Hiran by the 2015-2016 drought that killed her 50 goats.  She sells vegetables in Buundaweyn market in Beledweyne to provide for her granddaughters, buying vegetables on credit to pay back in the evening after her sales. She sets aside part of her earnings for the savings scheme and uses the rest on family bills.

She pays $25 a month for two of her granddaughters enrolled in a local primary school, and two in a madarassa.

Adar said she is happy to have the house ahead of the expected Deyr season rains.

However, for Qamar Dahir Guleid, 58, anxiety over how to repay her debt of $150 mars the satisfaction of being in her new house.

“I haven’t paid the money for the roof and the wood used to build this house. I only paid the builders,” she said.  “I worry a lot about the debt. I don’t know about others, but for me I hardly sleep at night because of my debt worries.”

Qamar sells women’s clothes, allowing people to pay for their purchases in small amounts.  She left her original home in Qallafe town in Ethiopia’s Somali region to help her married son raising his children in Shareeco. Her son works as a labourer.  Qamar pays the school fees for two of his children but was unable to pay for the last three months as she was contributing to the house-building scheme.

The businessman who donated the land to the IDPs, Abdullahi Hassan Abdi, has been helping the community to organise the funds and buy the construction materials.  He said each family brings him their contribution to the savings scheme every Friday so that he repays the loan to the stores for materials taken on credit.

“I collect the money and record each contribution. Every month we take the money we raised to the construction store to buy more materials. Last month, I took $180 collected by the IDPs,” he said.

There are 10 more houses in their final stages of construction that should be ready before the rain starts.

“They have been living here for 17 years. This is their land now, no one can evict them,” Abdullahi told Radio Ergo. “I have a house of my own and I ask God to bless that one for me. I have given them this land for good and I am assisting them with what I can.”

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“The wells don’t have water. I have been here for hours, and I haven’t got any water yet,” Nur told Radio Ergo, waiting at the only borehole in El-Afweyne, Bullow village, that has any water at all.

 “I have been working as a water seller for eight years and I have never seen a situation like this before!” he added.

Nur said he has waited into the night until 11pm. Due to the scarcity of water available, he is now selling a barrel at between 80,000 Somali shillings to 100,000 Somali shillings, up from 30,000 Somali shillings.

“The water shortage has greatly affected my daily life. My clients are waiting for me to deliver water to them, and I don’t have any. The water remaining in this well has also become dirty,” he said.

Fadumo Ali Hussein, a mother of five, used to buy a 200-litre barrel of water for her family every day. Now she buys just two 20-litre jerry cans if she can appeal to water sellers to sell to her. The water sellers give first priority to their regular customers whenever they succeed in filling their barrels from the well.

She sometimes goes to the well early in the morning and joins the long queues to buy 20 litres in a jerry can. She returns home in the afternoon with the water, although it is not enough to satisfy the family’s needs.

“The queues are too long. The situation is so dire, only those who have experienced it can talk about,” she said. “We pray to God for rain.”

Hudur has been under siege for several years, with supply routes in and out of the district blocked off by Al Shabab. Local people have to smuggle supplies in by donkey carts using back routes through the bush.

Haji Hassan Isack, a pastoralist who brought his livestock to the well in Bullow, said he has to wait many hours before his animals get the chance to drink. He herded them from Aboori village, 17 km away from Hudur, where there is no water.

The last three rainy seasons have failed in this part of Somalia. If the expected Deyr rains delay or fail, even this well in Bullow will run dry and nobody wants to think of the dire consequences.

“The water wells in Hudur are dry. We used to water our livestock at the wells near us. But now we are forced to bring them here. It takes four hours to get a chance to water my livestock,” Haji told Radio Ergo.

Haji needs two people to help him look after the livestock whilst he holds his position in the long queue for water.

“We come here in the morning and leave in the evening. Dozens of animals have died because of thirst,” he said.

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“I was told to choose between my marriage and the university!” Muna declared.

“You know the elders always side with the men when they mediate. The elders from both sides met and decided I should stop my studies and obey my husband. I approached my husband and told him to give me my divorce papers, as I was determined to study.”

She borrowed $220 from a female relative and enrolled in Tima-ade university in Gebiley in 2015.

Muna, 32, said the elders asked her husband to allow her to study, but he angrily stopped paying the extra money he gave her for shopping in an attempt to pressure her into dropping out of university.

Further emboldened, she wrote to the local government administration at the end of her first semester requesting a scholarship. She was among five students awarded scholarships for the rest of her course.

Muna had three children when she enrolled and her family grew during her studies. She took maternity breaks that prolonged her study period by two years.

“I was pregnant with my fourth child when I joined the university. I used to take breaks from the university during my pregnancies. There were times I used to leave the class mid-way to go home to breastfeed my baby,” said Muna.

She used to leave the children with a relative who lived with her in close proximity to the university.

Muna told Radio Ergo that she was excited by her academic achievement, which she would not have achieved if she had given in to her husband and society’s disapproval.

“People asked me, why do you want to join university when you have a husband and children to take care of? What is it that you are missing? But I found it inappropriate to sit back at home when I had studied up to form four,” she said.

Muna urged Somali women to further their studies instead of staying at home doing household chores. She argued that a mother is the first teacher of her children and that educating a woman educates a community.

“Today, I can diagnose my children’s illness and buy them the appropriate medicine. I can also apply for jobs and be an independent woman,” said Muna.

In the end, she explained, her husband and family came round to accepting her choice and even attended her graduation ceremony.  She is now actively seeking a job in her area of study.

Radio Ergo reached out to Muna’s husband, Mustafa Hashi Muhumed, who said he was very proud to witness his wife and the mother of his six children graduate from university.

“I am proud of her. It has been a long journey, but finally she has graduated. Her education means a lot to us as a family. She can now even help us financially, once she starts working,” Mustafa said.

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