Orphans facing street life after Saudi NGO pulls out

Somali communities have reacted with shock and dismay over a decision to close the Saudi-based Al-Haramayn aid agency after the US government accused it of links with terrorists.

The Islamic agency closed its doors in Somalia on Saturday after the Saudi government ordered its international staff to leave the country, Nur Alasow a Somali employee of the agency told IRIN.

Al-Haramayn first came to Somalia in 1992, at the height of the famine which led to the failed US-led Operation Restore Hope. The agency ran a total of eight orphanages - five of them in Mogadishu - housing about 3,500 children throughout the country. The other orphanages were in Merka in southern Somalia, and Burao and Hargaysa in the self-declared republic of Somaliland.

Alasow said that most of the orphans the agency cared for had lost one or both parents in the civil war.

"We have no idea what we are going to do now," he said. "We have enough supplies to last till the end of the month. After that it is up to Allah."

"The impact of the closure of Al-Haramayn orphanages will be most acutely felt by the poorest of the poor", added Abdullahi Haji Abukar, who worked with the children. "The vast majority of the children come from homes where if they get one meal a day, they consider themselves lucky".

"If someone else does not take over the orphanages it will be a disaster," he warned.

Alasow agreed, adding that if the orphanages did not get help, "most of the children will probably end up on the streets and join the large number of young gunmen roaming around, causing mayhem".

Abukar told IRIN that closing down the orphanages was "worse than the closure of Al-Barakaat". The vital Al-Barakaat money transfer company was closed in 2001, after it was accused of links with terror organisations.

"This is taking food from the mouths of children," he stressed. "These children did not have much but they had a roof over their head, three meals a day and schooling. Now they have nothing."

"Will those responsible for the closure of Al-Haramayn take care of these children or is it that the lives of 3,000 Somali children are of no consequence?", he asked.

A senior UN humanitarian official described the situation as "very disturbing".

"The lives of these vulnerable children will now be at risk, particularly as agencies working in cities like Mogadishu are unlikely to be able to look after the children, in the short term at least," he told IRIN.

And an official of the US embassy in Nairobi said: "This is a fairly new situation and we are looking into it."