BAIDOA, SOMALIA We arrive at one of Baidoa’s dozens of refugee camps like a military detachment: Three armored SUVs with three television crews. Three pickup trucks with 12 armed guards on board.
The setting feels wrong and disobedient: we European journalists and cameramen are protected like state guests.
All around there are nomadic huts in the shape of a hemisphere, built from incredibly flexible sticks, cloth and pieces of plastic.
People live in them, whom no one has managed to protect from drought and hunger.
“Al-Shabaab took the last goats”
More than 250,000 climate refugees have arrived in the city of Baidoa in central Somalia this year alone. Most of them are nomads, whose livelihood has been destroyed by the historically bad drought that has lasted for two years.
Refugee mother Wayaama Bakaar says that before this drought they had green pasture and 45 goats.
– If we needed something, we could sell one of our goats. But now all the animals have died from the drought, and we have no chance to return home, says Bakaar.
The story repeats itself in almost the same way from camp and hut to another. The animals have died or there are so few of them left that the family can no longer be supported.
And even small assets are taxed by the terrorist organization al-Shabaab, which controls the Baidoa area.
No one dares to speak about Al-Shabaab by its own name, but this story is repeated in the same way.
– Al-Shabaab did not help us in any way. They came and demanded money from all the families, and if it wasn’t there they took some of our last goats, says a resident of the camp who remains anonymous.
There is not enough help for everyone
Baidoa is the last hope for nomadic families amid drought, hunger and the threat of Al-Shabaab.
In the camps that have grown up around it, they have even a small chance of getting help from the Somali government or international aid organizations: water, food or financial aid.
But many have been disappointed. Refugee mother Adey Isak came to Baidoa with children about a month ago.
– So far, we haven’t received help from anyone other than our neighbors here in the camp. We got half a kilo of rice yesterday and ate it in the evening. Today we still haven’t eaten anything even though it’s already afternoon, Isak says.
The scales in Baidoa are hopeless, as they are in the drought regions of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya anyway.
Almost a million Somalis have already been forced to leave their home regions due to the drought. The resources of aid organizations and governments are by no means sufficient to help all those in need.
“If you don’t get help, a lot of people will die here”
Save the Children communications manager Mowlid Mudan sends a strong message to the upcoming climate change conference in Egypt.
According to him, it is unreasonable that the people who are the least to blame for climate change are now suffering the most from it.
Africans have produced only four percent of the world’s climate emissions so far. From climate refugees to Africa’s share being evaluated now (you will switch to another service) and in the future about 40 percent.
Aid organizations have been ringing the alarm bells for months. The UN estimates that more than 100 million dollars are urgently needed to combat the hunger crisis. Only a good tenth of the money has been collected.
The world does not hear the cry of distress from the dry plains of Africa.
– There is a real threat of famine here. If more help is not received quickly, many people will die in these camps, Mudan says seriously.
“We can save almost every child”
At the malnutrition clinic run by Save the Children, we see the tragic face of drought. Children are brought here every day who are dying of starvation and related diseases.
We’re leaving, Chief Medical Officer by Mohamed Osman along for the ride. In the small rooms, there are dozens of skinny people, small children and mothers, whose eyes show both deep concern and hope.
Two years old Abdirazak has been brought to the clinic a day earlier. He was then severely malnourished, dehydrated and unconscious.
Abdirazak weighs only five kilograms. Mohamed Osman grabs his feet, presses with his thumbs and shows how deep depressions are left on the soles of his feet.
– This swelling is a clear sign of severe malnutrition. But we will get Abdirazak to recover. We have given him a nutrient solution and two different antibiotics and he is clearly doing better already.
Mohamed Osman assures that the clinic can save almost every malnourished child that is brought there.
– Except for those who die in our hands right at the clinic’s doorstep. And of course we cannot save those who die on the way to Baidoa or in the camps on the outskirts of the city.
At the door of the children’s room, both children and mothers are smiling. They have been saved from the gates of death.
“Mana wasn’t sick, just hungry”
We walk from the refugee tent village to the dry plain, threading our way between low bushes and coral-like boulders.
Armed guards spread out over a wide area, tens of meters away from us. We are on the edge of town, close to al-Shabaab territory.
A human figure can be seen on the horizon on top of a small hill. As we get closer it is confirmed that this is what we set out to find.
A gravedigger and a mound where 15 children who died of malnutrition have been buried in the last two weeks.
One of them is ManaAdey Isak’s seven-year-old daughter.
– Mana was a playful and talkative girl. He was the one of my children who knew how to light fires. And whenever I needed a cup of tea, Mana made it for me, Adey Isak says, sadness in his eyes.
Adey Isak left his home village of Qasidheer about a month ago, on a footpath with eight children. The father of the family had to stay in the village to take care of his dying mother.
From Qasidheer to Baidoa, it is more than a hundred kilometers along a road that cuts through a dry plain. The journey to Baidoa for the mother and children weakened by hunger was difficult.
Isak says that they got a donkey ride for the rest of the trip. However, it was not enough to save his second oldest child, Mana.
– Mana got tired and weakened on the way here. When we got there and got our hut set up, he died.
– I didn’t take Mana to the hospital because she wasn’t sick. He was just hungry, and the hospital doesn’t treat hunger.