(ERGO) – When drought in southern Somalia killed off the last of his 20 cows and 30 goats – the herd that his family depended on for survival – Mohamud Ahmed Nunow knew they had no choice but to leave the countryside and head for the city.
The family with six children set off on 20 January on a week-long journey from the village of Edayin, located 40 kilometres from Baidoa.
Mohamud, 70, now relies on begging from local people in the part of Baidoa’s urban sprawl where they have put up a flimsy shelter of sorts.
He has spent 50 years of his life as a pastoralist, but having lost his livelihood he feels bereft of all support and peace of mind.
“I don’t have anything in my hands right now. Hunger has forced us to seek refuge in the city. I just came here, and I don’t know what kind of work to do in this city. The situation is confusing to us. My children are suffering here. When we arrived, kind people, seeing our situation, began giving us charity. That’s how we live now,” Mohamud told Radio Ergo’s local reporter.
Two consecutive rainy seasons failed in Bay region. Mohamud described how he journeyed three times between May and the end of last year with his animals in search of pasture and water – but each trip failed and he had to return.
He found that all the water sources – wells, dams, and other reserves – had dried up. After losing his last five animals at the beginning of January, he was compelled to focus solely on the safety of his children.
With little experience of living in urban areas, he complained about the poor accommodation for his family, including his youngest child, aged two. The shelter has open sides, leaving them exposed to wind.
“When you see the house where I live today, you’ll see the wind enters from one side and exits the other. It’s made of cloth we patched together. What we used to live in back home was a proper Somali house built with grass and trees.
This isn’t a house, it’s just cloth. Our hearts are broken,” Mohamud said.
If circumstances had allowed, he would have moved his traditional Somali house from Edayin, but they lacked transportation to bring it along.
Mohamed described their arduous journey to Baidoa, traversing drought-stricken land with intense heat. They carried 20 litres of water with them that lasted several days and they had to make frequent stops to rest because of the harsh sun. Other displaced families from Edayin accompanied them, also having lost their livestock to the drought. Some came from rural villages like Goof-gaduud, El-dhunio, and Mooda-moode in Bay region.
Hundreds of families have migrated to Baidoa in the past weeks, seeking food and shelter. They are currently living under trees, as joining already overcrowded internal displacement camps in the city proves difficult. Rickety carts loaded up with rural people’s belongings, with women carrying small children walking alongside, are a common sight on the roads into the city.
Manur Ali Ibrahim was displaced from Goof-gaduud due to the loss of his livestock. For two months in Baidoa, he has struggled without basic food.
“Sixty goats I reared died due to lack of pasture, starting six months ago. They were my family’s only source of income,” Manur told Radio Ergo.
In an effort to support his wife and eight children Manur, 42, walks four kilometres every morning into Baidoa city to seek manual labour jobs or ask for food to support his family. Begging has been more successful than finding any work.
“I don’t know how to work. I’m a villager, and my eight children are in need here. I’ve moved around the city but haven’t found anything because I lack the skills. Even carrying stones for construction jobs, I can’t get hired,” Manur said.
They sleep under a tree, draping cloths to shield themselves from the sun. Manur hopes that if they moved closer to the city it might improve their situation.
“My family’s problems are beyond my control. I haven’t been able to manage them since coming to Baidoa. I have no finances to support my family. The water available at the site costs 4,000 Somali shillings for 20 litres, so I prefer fetching water from a well six kilometres away where it’s free,” he said.
“The worry I have now is whether my children will die of hunger. I trust in God. During the rainy season, we didn’t worry about food, the animals had enough pasture. We milked them, sold their milk, and lived comfortably. Now, nothing seems too big for God, but if the drought continues and our animals die, our situation becomes dire.”
The roads connecting Baidoa to nearby villages are filled with people fleeing drought-stricken areas in search of water and pasture. They include agro-pastoralists like Nuradin Ishaq Maclin, whose crops and animals were devastated by the drought.
Nuradin, 47, settled his family of eight on the outskirts of Baidoa in January after losing 25 cows. His two-hectare farm in Edayin, where he spent most of his life, was uncultivated for two years due to lack of rain.
For the past eight months, he had been managing his family’s needs by borrowing and using money sent by relatives. However, mounting debts and the loss of his livestock forced him in the end to move to Baidoa.
“Some people in the place I moved from need me to repay $375 in debt and a goat I borrowed when I ran out of options. That’s the amount of debt I am in. I’ll pay it off when God provides something. But today, except for what God knows, I have nothing to repay that debt,” Nuradin stated.
He and his wife go out begging in the city as he sees this as the only solution they have currently to try to stay alive.