Al-Imdaad Foundation relief teams in Somalia
The relief team arrived in the country on April 8 to help address the drought and food insecurity situation, which has left 6.2 million people in need of aid
Submitted by the Al-Imdaad Foundation
An Al-Imdaad Foundation team has been on the ground in Somalia where crippling drought has brought the country to the brink of what could be its third famine in 25 years.
The relief team arrived in the country on April 8 to help address the drought and food insecurity situation, which has left 6.2 million people in need of aid, according to the United Nations. Some three million are already in a food crisis, and need lifesaving assistance.
A prefamine alert was put out by the United Nations in February 2017 and a national drought disaster was announced by the Somali government later in the same month.
According to humanitarian groups, there is only a small window to avoid a repeat of the 2011 famine, which claimed the lives of 265 000 people. Al-Imdaad Foundation team member Muhammed Sader says the situation is reminiscent of the 2011 drought and famine.
He said: “It’s sort of history repeating itself, they’ve had two seasons of poor rainfall in many areas of Somalia and unfortunately this has caused a widespread drought.”
The Al-Imdaad Foundation says it has been responding to the crisis in Somalia and East Africa since early March 2017 through regional partners and its Kenyan office. Â As part of this response, food and water distributions have been taking place in affected areas.
In April 2017, the foundation furthered its response by sending a South African delegation to do relief work on the ground and witness the crisis first hand.
Relief team member Muhammed Sader said, “Initially we were working through our partners, but we thought it was prudent to come here and see what it is, to identify the needs going forward.”
The Al-Imdaad Foundation team flew from Mogadishu inland to the Baidoa district in South Western Somalia where their relief efforts were concentrated. Â Baidoa district is situated in the Bay region, which is one of the two most severely affected regions in the current drought.
Muhammed Sader described how there were over 100 camps around Baidoa city, where people from rural areas had flocked, in the hope that aid agencies would provide food or some form of water supply. He said that relief aid distributions had targeted internally displaced people (IDP) resident in these camps.
Mr Sader explained that these are not official camps, they’re just camps that these people have set up, the tents are made from twigs and scraps of material. Â There’s approximately 20 000 people (in the camps) in need of food and clean drinking water.
Explaining the movement of the people to urban areas like Baidoa, Mr Sader called it “an act of desperation.”
He said: “All of the people come from rural farms, because of the drought they’ve experienced crop failure and they’ve lost all of their livestock.
“They have nothing, they have no food, they have no water, so they just pack up and come to a place where they hope they can find something.”
The Al-Imdaad Foundation team also visited the Baidoa hospital for IDPs where they witnessed young children being treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and diarrhoea symptoms resulting from use of contaminated water.
Describing the children at the hospital, Muhammed Sader said: “It’s hard to digest things like that, where you see a child so frail maybe two fingers are the size of their leg.”
Mr Sader went on to explain how the Al-Imdaad Foundation is addressing the most critical need of the time, which is emergency food aid and drinkable water.
He said the foundation’s food aid was comprised of comprehensive food hampers including staples with added nutrients that would last the average family 20-30 days. Water tankers were also being used to fill barrels for domestic consumption.
Al-Imdaad Foundation says it will continue its emergency relief programme for victims of the ongoing drought and aims to do whatever it can to avert a repeat of the 2011 famine. These efforts are dependent on the support of donors to continue.
You can support the Al-Imdaad Foundation’s emergency relief programme for Somalia by donating on www.alimdaad.com or calling 0861786243 for more information.
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