Friday, June 24, 2011
men and women do menial jobs in homes of well-
to-do families as maids and cooks and in markets
where they work as porters, cleaners and guards.
Crammed into a makeshift one- roomed tent in a camp for the internally displaced in the Somali capital Mogadishu, Hibo Ali and her six children have to make do with the prolonged hard times.
Ali, 45, fled with her children from their home in Hudur town south of Somali, following the death of her husband in the long- drawn conflict in Somalia in 2007 and the birth of her younger daughter Muna, 3, to seek safety and livelihood in the camps in Mogadishu.
“We had to leave everything behind because there was constant fighting in our neighborhood which killed my husband who was the sole bread-winner for the family,” Ali told Xinhua in Mogadishu .
Ali, just like the hundreds of other families in the camp, she expected to find support from humanitarian agencies she was told provided food and shelter to refugees in Mogadishu but she was left to fend for her family alone and single-handedly.
“When we arrived at the camp we had to build our tent from straws and ragged clothes I collected from the area around the camp.
“I had to find water from a water-well far from the camp,” Ali explained as she gave one of the two meals she can provide to her children from maid jobs she does for other well-off families in the town.
Aid agencies have drastically scaled down aid provision to internally displaced people and falling donor contribution to international aid agencies and the growing insecurity which forced most of relief workers out of the restive East African country.
Islamist group of al Shabaab which has been waging deadly insurgency against the Somali government and African Union peacekeepers banned humanitarian agencies from operating in Somalia accusing them of being “anti-Islam”, charge the agency vehemently refuted by international humanitarian agencies.
Almost 1.5 million Mogadishu residents have fled their homes since the start of the insurgency back in 2007 while thousands more have camps in government controlled part of the Somali capital after they fled from other parts of the city devastated by the ongoing violence as well as from outside the restive capital.
Families at the camp have to rely on themselves for support as men and women do menial jobs in homes of well-to-do families as maids and cooks and in markets where they work as porters, cleaners and guards.
Most of the children at the camp do not go to formal school but some to religious Quran memorization schools while most work as shoe-shiners to help their family incomes.
Some of the children from internally displaced families end up as street children involved in anti-social activities and the use of drugs.
“We are struggling to make ends meet in this difficult time of ours and despite the meager income I manage to earn, I am sending some of my children to school and I (am) hopeful that they will one day be helping me and others as good citizens,” Ali said as she stroke the head of her eldest son 11-year-old Mohamed who is one of the few lucky camp dwellers who go to formal schools in restive Mogadishu.