Appeal for food aid as two IDP children die in Beletweyne

Officials in the town of Beletweyne in Hiiraan region, central Somalia, have appealed for urgent help for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), saying they had run out of food.

"We have had two children aged five and two die in Nasib camp. The first one died last night, the second one this morning," said Magalo Muhumud, who oversees two camps. The children were from the same family, she said.

Muhumud said most of the displaced had run out of food and depended on what the town's people were able to give them.

"There are an estimated 15,000 IDPs in the town, with little or nothing to eat. Their situation is very desperate," Salah Mumin Muse, the district commissioner of Beletweyne, told IRIN on 25 June.

"Most are from Mogadishu but we also have people who have lost their livestock and moved to the town in search of help," said Muse.

Muse said the host community was not in a position to do much to help "since they were not much better off".

He warned that if the situation of the IDPs did not improve soon, "more will die. If there is no help within a week I fear we will have more people dying," he said. "I hope aid will come before it is too late for many."

Many IDPs used to go to town to beg or do odd jobs but because of the current insecurity in the town they no longer go there, said a local journalist.

"There have been rapes and other incidents targeting the IDPs," he said. The IDPs, he added, were generally in poor health and lacked access to basic services. "There are no health workers or anyone else to help them," he added.

The mother of the dead children, Mumino Haji, said she had left her home after her neighbourhood became a war zone. "I left Mogadishu hoping to find peace and escape death but instead found hunger and death."

Haji told IRIN her son and daughter had died of hunger. "The first one died last night and the second one died today [25 June]." She has six other children and nothing to feed them. "I used to go to the bush to collect firewood and grass to sell but now I cannot even do that.

"I am too weak and my husband has a bullet in him. I pray to God that something will come to save us."

The only food the displaced in the camp receive comes from CARE International. The agency said there was a distribution in April and there were plans for another "very soon. The trucks are on the road on their way to Beletweyne," said a source.

Since fighting between Ethiopian-backed Somali forces and insurgents began in early 2007, about one million Somalis have fled their homes. An estimated 6,500 civilians have been killed.

Aid workers estimate that 2.6 million Somalis need assistance. That number is expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year if the humanitarian situation does not improve, according to the UN.

ah-as/mw