Lower Shabelle struggling to help IDPs

Officials in Somalia's Lower Shabelle region have appealed for urgent help for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the area, who lack shelter, water and food.

"Some 4,000 families [roughly 24,000 people] people are registered in Shalaambod  [a town 90 km south of the capital, Mogadishu] as of today [12 February]," Mahamud Dahir Qooley, an interior ministry official in charge of humanitarian issues in the region, said.

He said some of the IDPs had fled a recent upsurge of violence in Mogadishu while others had returned from the Kenyan border after failing to cross into the neighbouring country. Most had arrived in the past six months, Qooley added.

Abdulkadir Salahley, a member of the elders’ committee representing the displaced, told IRIN that more people were coming to Shalaambod because they "could not find space around Ceelasha [on the outskirts of Mogadishu] camps". He said others were fleeing Mogadishu in fear of violence escalating in the city.

However, Salahley said aid agencies in Shalaambod were not providing any assistance. "We have visitors but so far no help. Our situation is like a man who has fallen into a well and no-one can see or hear him."

Shukri Gamadiid, an IDP from Mogadishu, said she and her four children were sleeping in the open, along with many other families. "We survive on what little the town's people are able to give us," Gamadiid said.

She said their most immediate needs were shelter, water and food.

Price rises

Salahley said life in Shalaambod for the IDPs was hard as prices of food and other essentials had gone up dramatically, "which has affected negatively both the displaced and the town's people".

Peter Goossens, the country director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP-Somalia), told IRIN: "WFP is assessing the reported IDP caseload in Shalaambod and once the numbers involved and the needs are ascertained, arrangements will be made to assist them."

The agency said the IDPs in Shalaambod initially had been integrated with the host community.

Our situation is like a man who has fallen into a well and no one can see or hear him

He added that new arrivals were worst affected as they were finding it hard to find shelter.

Security “reassessed”

Meanwhile, the UN said it has not suspended its operations in Somalia. However, it had "temporarily suspended missions to certain limited areas of Somalia, while a reassessment of the security environment due to the many security incidents in the past two weeks is undertaken".

The move follows an attack by unidentified gunmen on a UN compound in Mogadishu on 8 February.

According to civil society sources, at least 6,000 people have reportedly been killed in the fighting in Mogadishu between Ethiopian-backed government forces and insurgents and at least 700,000 displaced.

The UN estimates that about 5,000 war-wounded were admitted to Mogadishu's two main hospitals in 2007.

ah/mw