East Africa | Somalia: “Nothing is left of my former life”

Sharifo Aden Nur with two of her children in the Dubai displaced persons camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu Photo: Bettina Rühl Sharifo Aden Nur sits in front of the corrugated iron hut where she found refuge at the beginning of the year. The accommodation is in a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the Somali capital Mogadishu. Sharifo Aden came here with her seven children because there had been no rain for months in their home in the south of the East African country. The crops in their fields dried up and their animals no longer produced milk - if they survived at all.

Many people feel the same way as Sharifo and her family. According to the UN refugee agency's last estimate from the end of 2023, more than 600,000 people were already seeking refuge in the camps in the Kahda district on the outskirts of Mogadishu, where Sharifo also lives. They came because the fighting between the Islamist Shabaab militia and the Somali government reached their villages. And because weather extremes caused by climate change had destroyed their crops and made life there impossible. After the historic drought period from 2020 to 2023, the rainy seasons repeatedly failed to materialize or were too weak in the following years. The extreme drought was often followed by sudden, heavy rains, which led to devastating floods on the parched ground. This year the climate phenomenon El Niño is exacerbating the situation.

Since the end of 2023, the number of refugees in the Kahda camps has probably increased rather than decreased. According to UNHCR, there are 3.3 million internally displaced people and nearly half a million refugees and asylum seekers across the country, displaced by natural disasters and ongoing armed conflict. And that with a population of around 20 million.

Sharifo Aden Nur also fled first from the war, then from the drought. While she has her two youngest children on her lap, she explains why she came to Mogadishu. Until her first escape around three and a half years ago, she lived with her family in Buulo Marer, a fertile area in the Lower Shebelle region in southern Somalia. "But then mortar shells flew into our village," she says. The African Union Stabilization Force fought against Islamist militiamen. "My aunt finally said that we should all flee, we had no chance against the armed men." Because Sharifo's husband didn't want to leave her fields unguarded, she set off alone with the children and aunt, walking 130 kilometers to Mogadishu. "It was very stressful and I was very scared."

In the capital she at least found shelter in a camp, and sometimes a job in the city for a day or two that brought in some money for food. After a year, she wanted to return to her homeland, hoping that the situation there would be safe enough again. "I wanted to cultivate my fields again." But the good times that the farmer's wife still remembered were over: "The river had dried up, hardly anything was growing in the fields." Previously they had cultivated two hectares, now there was only enough water for one. Sharifo grew sesame. "We wanted to at least survive, but it wasn't enough for that either." Then the Shabaab militiamen came back. “After that everything fell apart,” remembers Sharifo: Anyone who could escape again. Before the drought and before the weapons.

"There is nothing left of my former life."

Once they walked for almost three hours to get water. One of the women in their group was pregnant. »She had her child on the way. There was no doctor. We put her under a tree, helped her and kept the children away.”

They then cleaned the baby with a piece of cloth. »After that we had nothing for the mother. No food, not even water. We only found a wild plant." They couldn't do much with it in its raw state, and they couldn't cook the plant without water. But they had an idea: “We chewed the plant until it was soft and the woman could swallow it. We gave her the porridge.”

When she talks about her losses in the internally displaced people's camp in Mogadishu, it's not just about the lost fields, a plundered crop and the dead livestock. It's also about the loss of almost everything that brings her joy in life. “People used to be honest with each other,” says Sharifo. »They helped each other. With the drought, the fighting and the violence, everything has changed." This is also the case in the Kahda refugee camp where she now lives: "Here they are now more likely to help people from their own clan. Others are despised. Although there had already been conflicts and competition between the clans before, they are now much more merciless and the exclusion of others is harsher.

Sharifo continues to speak, although her grief makes it difficult for her to speak. "I used to be happy." She went to weddings and other celebrations, there were also celebrations after the harvest, and Sharifo dressed particularly nicely for these occasions. »We were a community. Sometimes we celebrated all night long, we sang and danced." Back then, the animals still found enough to eat and gave milk, and Sharifo made butter from parts of it. “All that is gone,” she says finally. »There is nothing left of my former life. The only thing left is the question of food. When I get up, when I fall asleep, I always ask myself where I can get food for myself and my children. Food, food, food. This is how my life changed. That hurts."

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