Sonkorey Mohamed: "I'd rather die than live like this”

Photo: Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

Sonkorey Mohamed

NAIROBI, Sonkorey Mohamed, a 20-year-old woman, lives in a makeshift camp for the displaced near the town of Afgoye, 30km south of Somalia's capital Mogadishu. On 15 October, she fled heavy fighting in the city to seek refuge in the village of Arbiska with thousands of other IDPs.

Mohamed was heavily pregnant when she left her home in Waberi district, south Mogadishu. She went into labour and gave birth to her baby on the road to Afgoye:

"There was no midwife in our group or anyone who had ever helped with delivery, so after struggling for a long time, the baby

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came out. I was in pain and at the same time I wanted to get to a safe place before I had the baby.

"At first, when the baby came, I was happy but then I noticed that I was bleeding too much, and longer, and the baby was not active. The other women told me not to worry, that the bleeding would stop, but my baby did not survive. He was my first and it broke my heart when they told me he died.

"The bleeding did eventually stop, but something else did not. I cannot control my urine anymore. It is always coming and I cannot do anything. I only know I have urinated when I see I am wet.

"My husband has left me because he said I smell very bad and he could not stand it. Other people don’t want to be near me.

"I live in my hut alone, because I don’t like the way people look at me."

[Mohamed is suffering from obstetric fistula, a severe medical condition where a hole forms between the bladder and vagina, or between the rectum and vagina as a result of prolonged and obstructed childbirth. ]

"My husband and I were happy and looking forward to our first child. My husband used to get jobs at a nearby market. We did not have much but we survived and did not go hungry.

"But then the violence spread to us too and this happened to me.

"Now I have nothing. My husband left. I am surviving on what food we get from the distribution [relief aid] and on what others give me.

"I don't know what to do. No one is helping me with this problem and I have no money to take care of it. Sometimes, I want to die. I'd rather die than live like this.”

SOURCE: IRIN, November 21, 2007

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