Exodus

More on Somalia:

According to the BBC, 80% of Somalia is now outside governmental control and is “unsafe”. The government has been rapidly losing control over the country for years, and has been relying on hated Ethiopian troops to manage the population. However, these soldiers are hated by the people, as reports have come in that the Ethiopian force has been violently oppressing and brutalizing Somalis. As this information has come to light the world has turned a critical eye to the Somali government.

Fighting is ramped in the streets of the capitol city of Mogadishu. According to the BBC 60% of the inhabitants have left; it’s simply too dangerous to stay. The city is full of Ethiopian militia, who have tanks scattered in positions throughout the residential area as well as the abandoned market districts. “Many residents were trapped for long periods in their homes, fearing they would be shot if they emerged.” Although the government has called people to come back and has declared the city safe, the exodus continues.

65 year-old Haji Hassan Abukar, a former resident of Mogadishu, states that “all respect for human life has been lost.” Despite the past 16 years of unrest and violence he had refused to leave his home, however, lately even the aged have been targeted.

Those who have left Mogadishu have headed to other provinces, though many have not gone farther than the villages leading outside the city. Aid workers are reporting that there is an “estimated 100,000 displaced people [living] in the villages between Mogadishu and Afgoye in the south. Many have gone to Middle and Lower Shabelle, once-rich provinces which have recently been ravaged by both floods and drought. Food prices have thus skyrocketed, which has led to severe malnutrition, and in some places, famine.

There are aid agencies trying to help, but they are working in an extremely unstable and violent country, which results in only sporadic aid to the people. Each morning hungry Somalis “line up in their thousands to receive a handout of corn, beans and oil, often to go back to their] children at sunset empty-handed… Sometimes the food runs out and sometimes the agencies do not come.”

The only hope many have is in the person of the newly appointed prime minister, Nur Nur Hassan Hussein, also known as Nur Adde. Adde has been the head of the Somali Red Crescent (more about this agency later) for many years and is seen as untainted by political affiliation. Residents feel that he may be able to end the humanitarian crisis and to put an end to the violence. However, this hope is faint. Adde would have to build a consensus, reach out to the opposition and somehow convince the Somali factions to seek peace without violence.

To read the sources for this blog go here, here and here. Photo credit here.