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SALT LAKE CITY — The violence and drought situation in Somalia is growing worse. The United States estimates that 29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the past three months. Many more are dying of disease.
A Somali refugee family living in Utah remembers how they were once in the same situation.
Families are walking over 100 miles to find food, shelter and freedom. Tens of thousands of Somalis are crowding refugee camps in Mogadishu, looking for food and an escape from famine. The country has seen decades of unease caused by civil wars.
Mohammed Hashi Dahir lived through the early days of unrest in 1996 — at the height of political unrest in Somalia.
“(It’s) very hard, and very bad life in Somalia,” he said. “The people are dying every day,”
United Nations agencies estimate that nearly four million people are at risk of starvation because of the severe drought in the area.
Much of Somalia is controlled by militants who kicked out aid groups two years ago. While Dahir was forced to leave his homeland years ago, the memories of the brutality are still fresh. He described how the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab tried to imprison people in camps.
“They had this special area where they wanted to push the people and to take their area,” he said.
He also spoke about what the Islamic militant group did to his family. “They killed my brother and my father-in-law.”
Dahir, his wife and six children managed to escape their town in 1996, traveling on foot hundreds of miles, and found refuge in an Ethiopian refugee camp. They arrived in Utah 40 days ago.
As refugees are often split from their family members, Dahir has no idea where the rest of his family landed since they left Ethiopia 40 days ago.
“I think they entered the Kenya,” he said, “but I’m not sure. My mother, father and one of my sons.”
On Friday, the World Health Organization reported that there are cases of cholera in Somalia and a measles outbreak in Ethiopia. And the militants there continue to make it difficult for aid — medicine or food to enter — though some parts of Somalia are receiving help.
Email:niyamba@ksl.com
