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Galkayo,
October 24, 2009 – There is no shortage of dangers for women in the grim
refugee camps of northern Somalia.
But it is still better than the horrors they fled: civil war battles in
Mogadishu, drought in neighboring Ethiopia, inter-clan warfare and what
they say was state-sponsored ethnic persecution and killings.
Many have "lost" their husbands. Some men abandoned their families,
others tried to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen and have given no sign
of life since. Some are still part of the family but are away eking out
a living herding livestock.
The wastelands on the edge of Galkayo, a large swathe of low thorn scrub
where millions of plastic bags flutter in the breeze, are home to
several camps.
In a camp called Mustaqbal, which translates as "future", Halima, a
divorcee of 35, recounted from behind her veil how she fled shelling in
Mogadishu, 700 kilometers (430 miles) to the south, with her five
children.
"We are the breadwinners for our families. We have no husbands and our
daily earnings are not enough to survive on," she said, gesticulating
with henna-patterned hands.
Halima has what is known locally as a "shoulder shop" — she hawks goods
— in this case clothing — from door to door.
The huts consist of acacia branches twisted into a dome shape and
covered with ragged cloths and rice sacks. A typical hut for a family is
between two and four square meters.
Women are at risk
Without men the women are constantly at risk of attack. They have to pay
for guards at night.
"Not a week goes by when we don't have a rape case," said Hawa Adan
Mohamed, a women's rights activist who runs vocational training schemes
and manufacturing projects in Galkayo.
"If you go to the police there's no follow up. They say that because of
the clan issue they cannot touch the perpetrator."
"Here the strongest man takes all," said a United Nations official.
Just down the road in Bulo Baaley camp the smell is overbearing. After
dark, adults and children alike defecate into plastic potties which
stand in front of the huts.
The shacks here are bigger but the landowner collects three dollars
rent.
"If you can't pay, he takes one of the children. He keeps the child
until he gets paid," explained Kasman Katal, a mother of three who looks
older than her 20 years.
"My husband left for Yemen. We've had no news since. We don't know if he
survived," she said, flapping at the flies swarming her baby's face.
A 15-year-old divorcee
She and her neighbor Marianne Abdi, a pretty girl of 15 who is already
divorced with a child, make money by removing garbage from houses in
Galkayo and dumping it on the edge of town.
Tawakal camp, home to some 1700 families, has a school and latrines. It
is further away from any formal settlement so work is harder to come by.
But there is no rent to pay and school is free.
Hawa, sat on a piece of sacking in front of her hut, looks close to
giving up on life. Her aged mother lies next to her, sick with malaria
while her adolescent daughter struggles to do the washing up in a
shallow pan of water.
"We get food on credit then we pay our debts when relatives send us
something," she said staring at the ground.
"Galkayo is surrounded by conflict-affected displaced from south and
central Somalia and also by drought-affected displaced," said Talil Musa
Mohamed, a traditional leader from South Galkayo.
Humanitarian workers say north and south Galkayo together count some 220
000 displaced people.
Galkayo, which straddles the "border" between the northeastern
semi-autonomous region of Puntland and Somalia proper, is not the only
area affected.
Somalia is one of the worst crises around as African heads of state hold
a special summit in Kampala on the continent's refugee and displacement
problem.
Constantly under fire
Civilians fleeing conflict have turned northern Kenya's Dadaab refugee
camp into the world's largest. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimates that there are around 1.5 million displaced people in Somalia,
close to a sixth of the total population.
Huge numbers are concentrated in the north, in Puntland or Somaliland, a
breakaway republic.
Grinding poverty, coupled with Somalia's clan system, means that the
displaced are not always welcome outside their native region.
Those fleeing the south and centre are fair game for armed gangs.
"In Mogadishu we were under continual artillery fire; we saw people die
and be eaten by cats and dogs. Then on the way here we were robbed, we
were raped and we lost children when they got sick and died," said
Fatuma Ahmed (39).
She spoke on behalf of about 100 women who fled the south between May
and August and who took refuge in Hargeysa, Somaliland, seen as the
country's safest city.
The aggressors are youths in civilian clothes. Either no one knows which
militia they belong to, or no one wants to say. They attack trucks at
night while passengers sleep on board.
Another group with little future are people of Somali origin who settled
in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia and who fled what they described as a
drought exacerbated by inter-clan warfare.
UNHCR and Relief International, a US aid group, have launched a
livestock programme in Tawakal, Bulo Baaley and three other camps. In an
attempt to move away from dependence on food aid, goats or chickens are
distributed to needy families.
In Tawakal the increase in the goat population has in turn drawn more
hyenas.
Habiba Barre (30) lives in a hovel made of flattened powdered milk cans.
She showed off a hole in the side of the hut that has been filled with
earth. A hyena tried to get in to carry off her three goats.
Barre says she fled Ethiopia after the government cracked down on ethnic
Somalis, accusing them of hosting rebels. She has kept her baby with
her, but six older children are staying with relatives. She too survives
on occasional remittances. But she has high hopes for her goats and is
looking forward to being able to sell the milk.
"Here at least we are only scared of hyenas, not of being killed," she
said.
Source: AFP, October 23, 2009
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