UN expert calls for urgent attention to IDP camps

A UN-appointed independent expert on human rights for Somalia has said that appalling conditions in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) should be tackled urgently.

Speaking at the end of an 11-day mission to Somalia, Dr Ghanim Alnajjar called on the international community, local authorities and civil society groups to address the issue, according to a press statement from the UN Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office for Somalia.

“The camps are in the worst conditions you can imagine,” Dr Alnajjar said. “They have absolutely no basic services such as water, health facilities or schools. They have to pay to use very basic toilets on the land on which they have settled and in addition, are also charged rent.”

There are an estimated 370,000 IDPs throughout Somalia, "most of them living in abject poverty and in areas under the control of armed faction leaders", the press statement noted.

Alnajjar visited IDP camps in Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland; Bosaso, in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland; and Kismayo, southern Somalia. He was, however, unable to visit the capital Mogadishu, where most IDPs live, due to insecurity.

In Kismayo, he met officials of the Juba Valley Alliance which controls the area and which is currently engaged in disarming militias. “This is one of the more positive things,” Alnajjar said. "It is a good effort made by the Somalis themselves and from their own budget.”

While in Somaliland he met President Dahir Riyaale Kahin and visited Hargeysa prison which he described as "the worst prison in the area with no sanitary facilities". But he noted that the general trend in Somaliland was more positive than last year.