Shukri Gamadiid, 27, is displaced in Somalia's Lower Shabelle region. She fled the capital, Mogadishu, in September 2007 due to fighting between government troops and insurgents and now lives in a camp for the displaced in the small town of Shalaambod, 90km south of Mogadishu.
Shalaambod is home to thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled Mogadishu and those who were turned back from Kenya. Gamadiid left Mogadishu with her husband and their five children, aged between two and 12 years, travelling more than 700km to the Kenyan border before returning to Shalaambod. She spoke to IRIN on 13 February:
"We used to live in Towfiq [north Mogadishu]. It became the centre of fighting; every day someone's house was hit by a shell or someone was killed.
"My husband and I decided to leave when it got so bad that we could not even get an hour of peace to go to the market. We decided that we should seek refuge in Kenya and we went with two other families to share the burden of the long journey.
"We hoped that our nightmare would be over once we reached Kenya. But we were wrong; on the way I lost one of my sons, a four-year-old.
"The militias we ran into on the way raped women and robbed us of all our belongings. By the time we reached Dobley [on the Kenyan-Somali border], we were exhausted, frightened and had nothing.
"We tried to cross into Kenya but they refused to let us in. People told us to wait, that we would eventually get in. For two months we waited and survived on help from the community. Finally, we decided to return. We found a truck driver who said he could take us up to Brawe [110km south of Shalaambod].
"Here [in the camp] we have safety but nothing else; I live in a hut with my family. It gives us shade from the sun but when it rains we get wet. We depend on the kindness of other people who have been here before us. Some days my children go hungry and the only thing they get is tea.
"I worry a lot about my children. The oldest used to go school. Now he does not and if this continues none of us will have any future. I hope and pray that this will be over soon so we can go back to our lives.
"This is not a life for any one."
ah/mw
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
