Afgoye IDPs forced out as "pirate" landlords move in

Property owners in Somalia's Afgoye corridor, near the capital Mogadishu, are selling the land on which thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been settled for years, displacing them anew, say locals.



"Hundreds of families have been evicted from their camps by people who bought the land," Asha Sha'ur, a civil society activist, told IRIN on 15 September. "People with money are buying property in the area known as the Afgoye corridor, displacing people who have been displaced so many times and no one is saying anything about it."



A local journalist, who requested anonymity, told IRIN: "Many of those who are acquiring the land are said to be people with piracy links." He said they were flush with cash and offering inflated prices for the land.



A well-placed security source said he had also heard of ties between piracy and those buying up plots in the corridor.



Sha'ur said many of the IDP families had been living in the area three to four years and were now moving further away from the main road, out of reach of aid groups.



"The [aid] agencies have established water points and other services in the camps around Arbiska and Ceelsha Biyaha [between Mogadishu and Afgoye], because they were close to the main highway."



Sha'ur said many of the families were not given adequate time to find new homes. "First they were displaced by war and now by greed."



"They have guns"



Fadumo Haji, a mother of three, was evicted from her shelter in the Israc IDP camp in the Arbiska area. She told IRIN that along with 450 other families in the camp, she was given a week to leave. "If you don't leave they come in and destroy your house and everything in it. They are very cruel. Where do they expect us to go?"



She is staying with friends in another camp until she finds alternative shelter. "We cannot fight them; they have guns and we don't," Haji said. "There is no difference between those who chased us out of Mogadishu and these ones."



According to Jowahir Ilmi, of the Somali Women Concern (SWC) - a local NGO working with the displaced - so far, at least 60 settlements have been affected.



"They [new landlords] are building structures for rent but I don't think anyone will be able to afford them; these are very poor people," Ilmi said.



Ilmi said the evictions coincided with increased displacement from Mogadishu following intense fighting between government troops and insurgents.



"We have had a stream of people arriving for the last three weeks and they don't have a place to shelter."



According to the UN, 26,100 people have left the city since 23 August, adding to the nearly 400,000 already displaced.



Since 2009, Mogadishu has borne the brunt of the fighting between African Union-backed troops loyal to the Transitional Federal Government and armed Islamist insurgents, who now control much of the south and centre of the country.



The evictions and continued fighting were forcing many IDPs "to move further and further, making [them] inaccessible to what little help they were getting", added Ilmi.



ah/mw