SOO MAAL Posted May 11, 2005 Somalia's long-suffering war displaced wait, and wait for promised relief by Ali Musa Abdi MOGADISHU, May 10 (AFP) - Scarred by 14 years of anarchic bloodletting that has forced them from their homes, more than 100,000 war displaced Somalis remain camped in squalor in this lawless capital awaiting long-promised relief. Beset by a multitude of woes, including physical threats, disease, chronic shortages of food and potable water and poor housing, many have grown skeptical of well-intentioned but as-yet unmet pledges of assistance. "We don't get enough food, we have no medication or proper shelter," says 60-year-old Ahmed Yaqub Ufurrow, who for the past decade has been living in one of the many squatter camps to have sprung up in north and south Mogadishu. As bad as the situation is, it is better than what many face at home in central central Bay and Bakol regions from where most of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) hail, he said. "What we would face at home if we return is much worse," Ufurrow said. "At home, I have nothing better than what I am facing now, no animals, no farm and nothing to start business." "It is too difficult to beg from those whom know you in the villages because they also have nothing to offer," he said. "Mogadishu is big city where you may meet new people to help." Nearby, Asha Mumin, who arrived in Mogadishu in 1994, says she hopes the transitional Somali government, still based in neighboring Kenya for security reasons, will soon be able to provide some help. "If the new government has plan to return us home and provide a solution to the insecurity and poverty, it would be good," she said, adding quickly that she has more faith in children than in any official offers of assistance. Cramped in crowded and unsanitary make-shift camps, the difficulties faced by Ufurrow and Amin and tens of thousands of others who face the daily threat of sexual assault, other crimes and water-borne, skin and respiratory diseases. "Rape of mothers and young girls by filthy gunmen is one of the worst threats against the IDPs, poverty is the second debacle," said Maryan Awreye, director of the Doctor Ismail Jumale Human Rights Organization, one of a few private aid groups operating in Mogadishu. The crushing poverty of the displaced has had a devastating effect on the health situation, officials say. "Medical services are not expensive in Mogadishu, but IDPs can't afford anything which is not free," said Halima Yusuf, a nurse at Medina hospital, one of only two such facilities working in the capital. Instead, they rely on traditional healers and herbalists who, more often than not, inflict more harm than good, she added. Somalia has been in chaos since 1991 since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the country into anarchy with clan warlords fighting for control of a patchwork of fiefdoms. The years of factional fighting that have followed have turned the country into an archetypal "failed state," prompted botched military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations and the United States in the 1990s. With rampant insecurity thousands of villagers fled unstable rural areas for the relative security of the cities where the influx of people and weapons quickly left the already poor infrastructure crumbling. Alarmed, many international aid groups responded by the chronic instability, profusion of weapons and unremittant violence have forced the withdrawal of foreign staff and the closure of many non-governmental organziation missions. "There are no permanent expatriate NGO personnel because insecurity to offer adequate services to people living in the camps," said Mursal Ahmed Abdullahi, a disabled man living in a camp in south Mogadishu camp. "The local staff can't help us because of a shortage of funds or other reasons," he lamented. Yet, still the displaced stay, refusing to return home in the stubborn hope that the situation in the capital might change and reluctant to face a potential loss in alms. "Some might help while others may refuse or insult you," Ufurrow said. "Anyway, begging is better than stealing." Copyright © 2005 Agence France-Presse Received by NewsEdge Insight: 05/10/2005 11:34:30 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
