Somali Islamists thrive as children die in the dust

Despite driving the people under its control into famine and destitution, Somalia's al-Shabaab militia is still thriving, reports Mike Pflanz.


A stricken Somali child at a refugee camp. As well as the human tragedy, families face seeing their livelihoods threatened as livestock is lost to drought and militias Photo: REUTERS

For the thousands of people fleeing famine to squat here in rag-and-stick shelters pitched on a sloping plain bleached of colour, this village is known as Beladul Amiin, or "the safe place". To an outsider, it appears far from that. Gunmen - in uniform and not - saunter past skinny cows lying listlessly under a dull sky. Giant storks pick at rubbish pinned by the hot wind to leafless thorn bushes. In the distance, the mosque is scarred by mortars from battles last month between government forces and Islamist militia.

But to the 18,000 people who have fled here from deep in rural Somalia, plagued by a spreading famine and the rapacious extortions of murderous fundamentalist fighters, this truly is a sanctuary. Here, there is water. There are increasing food deliveries from aid workers cautiously crossing the border from Kenya for the first time. There is a hospital, over the border, to treat children who would otherwise starve to death.

The villages these people left behind are now deserted, emptied as al-Shabaab, Somalia's Islamist insurgents, stole food and livestock, executed dissenters and forcibly abducted young men to fight.

"They are killing and raping people there, whole villages are being burnt, all of the animals have been taken," said Hawa Hassan, a middle-aged mother who walked for 10 days to reach Tullo Amiin. "My brother was shot and killed in his home. It is the same for everyone. There is no peace there. They are forcing people into recruitment to fight. We had to run to save our lives."

Across the border in Kenya, in Mandera town's district hospital, Kursha Mohamed Ali sat on a thin mattress in an emergency ward cradling her two-year-old son. The 28-year-old fled her village in al-Shabaab-controlled Bakool region at the beginning of the year, after the militia chased out all foreign aid workers and looted stores full of relief food. "That was all that we had to depend on," she said. "They are bad people. They will take food from you even if you are starving. They will take tax from you if you sell your animals."

Al-Shabaab has only survived because it has run these extortion schemes, often under the guise of collecting Muslim "zakat" payments intended under Islam to be used to help society's destitute. Instead, the group has bankrupted and now forced into famine the majority of people living in the areas it controls.

Yet al-Shabaab is still managing to lure fresh fighters into its ranks, many of them from over the border in Kenya, clan elders and government officials warned. Again, it is drought and a lack of income and opportunity that is pushing Kenya's young sons and brothers into the arms of Islamist fundamentalists. "There is nothing else for them to do," said Haji Mohamed, one of a group of two dozen elders gathered last week in El Wak, another town lying on the border between Kenya and Somalia, 300 miles south of Mandera. To nods from his peers, Mr Mohamed said: "Our able-bodied men are being lured very easily to al-Shabaab. So many of our youths are there fighting for them now. They are told they will earn £60 or £100 a month. Of course they will go."

Haroun Sheikh Ali, another of the town leaders in the meeting, told of a young man whose had lost almost all of his 300-strong herd of goats. "One day, he just disappeared. We came to know later that he had joined al-Shabaab, he told his father who went to rescue him that he would stay, and that there were so many boys from his village there with him," Mr Ali said. "This is something very common now. Before the drought, it was not there."

Global efforts to fight the famine and drought now threatening 12.5 million Kenyans, Somalis and Ethiopians with starvation are accelerating, with appeals gaining momentum and new refugee camps opening to cope with the continued exodus of people away from the worst-hit regions.

But Jeremy Hulme, the CEO of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (Spana), a British charity, says the international community is "missing the big picture" in its response to the drought. "We are doing a great job of feeding hungry people," Mr Hulme said on a visit to his organisation's projects in northern Kenya. "But by allowing all their livestock to die we are denying them a future and we will surely have to feed them forever. If we can just keep a nucleus of animals alive over the next two months, people will be able to pick up their lives again when the rains come." Without livestock to sustain them, families forced into desperate decisions.

Mothers are abandoning their children even when they arrive to the safety of Kenya's Dadaab refugee camps, according to Save The Children. Four times as many 'unaccompanied' children have been registered in July than in a normal month, the charity reveals today. Others are leaving behind their ancient lifestyle as nomadic herders and settling in towns, relying on handouts.

Far better to keep as many animals alive now as possible, the elders in El Wak said. "Everyone who comes here ask if we are hungry, if we humans have enough food," said Mr Mohamed. "That is important, but for us more important at this time is feeding the last remaining animals that have survived these years of drought." Sitting a row in-front of him at the meeting, Aden Kala Dido added: "When the last animal goes, then it is time to start waiting for the humans to begin dying too."

To head off this threat of the famine-level of hunger spreading across the border from Somalia into Kenya, Spana is trucking animal food and livestock vaccines to remote communities across northern Kenya. It may seem counter-intuitive to be carrying fodder for goats, cows and camels when people are streaming to feeding centres to find food aid. But already herders are sharing the few supplies they are given with their animals, denying their families the rations that have been carefully calculated by aid agencies and the Kenyan government. "That is the measure of how important the animals are to these people," said Lenkai Ole Tutui, the district commissioner in charge of the area around El Wak.

As repeated droughts hammer the Horn of Africa, however, an increasing number of people here are beginning to see that a complete reliance on owning livestock to make a living is not enough. "There was a time when a man could marry well if his bride's family saw he owned many animals," said Abdi Aziz Aden, a 60-year-old former herder who now runs a small mobile telephone money-transfer business in El Wak. "Now, the bride's father wants to know, does the boy have a donkey-cart, to make business? Does he grow mango trees down by the river, to earn more money? This is the only future for us people. Business that does not depend on the rains coming. Instead of the West sending us food aid, why can you not change the system. Send me a bank loan, then I know I will survive when the next drought comes."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/somalia/8700025/Somali-Islamists-thrive-as-children-die-in-the-dust.html

So complicated and so horrendous! People really need to work out the best way of going about this rather than what has been done before.

sassy1261 wrote:So complicated and so horrendous! People really need to work out the best way of going about this rather than what has been done before.

It's terrible Sassy, ten children dying every day

Ten Somali children a day die in Ethiopia's Kobe refugee camp

UN reports 'alarming' figures as fresh questions are raised about al-Shabaab rebels' responsibility for the impact of the famine.


Somali refugee Mohamed Ibrahim (right) prepares to bury his one-year-old son, who died of malnutrition in Ethiopia's Kobe refugee camp. Photograph: Jenny Vaughan/AFP/Getty Images

Ten Somali children under the age of five are dying every day of hunger-related causes in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, according to the UN refugee agency.

UNHCR reported the "alarming" increase in the number of deaths at Kobe camp after completing an assessment this week. The main cause was malnutrition, although a measles outbreak has contributed to the high mortality rate.

The camp, one of four in Dollo Adow in south-east Ethiopia, opened in June when Somalis fleeing drought and conflict poured over the border in large numbers. Kobe reached its 25,000 capacity in a month, and while new arrivals from Somalia are being directed elsewhere the death toll is not slowing.

In a briefing in Geneva, UNHCR said the average of ten deaths a day stretched back to late June, meaning that at least 500 young children had died in less than two months.

Most of the Somali refugees arriving in Ethiopia are from rural areas, and many have never used formal health facilities before. Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokesman in Nairobi, said this was a factor in the high death rate because parents did not know what to do with their malnourished children, even after receiving initial treatment and handouts of therapeutic food.

"Parents are told they need to sustain the supplementary feeding but they don't always do it," said Redmond. "Ensuring that they treat their kids and bring them back to health centres in a large camp is difficult and labour intensive."

Separately, some 17,500 Somalis have crossed into the Gode and Afder areas of Ethiopia, 150 miles north-east of Dollo Adow, in the past six weeks.

The continued exodus and growing death toll from the famine in Somalia is raising fresh questions about the culpability of the al-Shabaab insurgent group, which controls most of the southern part of the country. Though the causes of the famine or near-famine conditions in southern Somalia are numerous – including drought, high food prices and the absence of a government for two decades – the al-Qaida-linked Islamist movement has played a significant role.

Initially known for its effective guerrilla campaign against occupying Ethiopian forces, al-Shabaab became increasingly extreme once the enemy withdrew, with militants enforcing mosque attendance and carrying out amputations and stonings of alleged criminals, some of them teenagers. By assassinating local journalists, they ensured that the motivations and makeup of their forces have remained murky.

In 2009, al-Shabaab banned a number of aid groups, including the UN World Food Programme, for alleged offences ranging from spying to being anti-Muslim and distorting the local economy. Numerous humanitarian workers were also killed, ensuring that even groups with permission to work had to scale back their activities and withdraw non-Somali staff.

The restrictions and security concerns meant millions of Somalis had no safety net when the drought really began to bite early this year. In the worst-hit areas, there was no food distribution or help in obtaining water.

In early July the rebels said all aid agencies would be allowed to assist with drought relief, but then backtracked, saying the earlier ban on certain organisations stood. They also denied that famine was occurring.

Interviews with refugees who fled Somalia for Kenya revealed that in some areas al-Shabaab militias had tried to prevent people from leaving to seek outside help, even those pushed close to death by hunger. A new report by Human Rights Watch confirmed these findings.

Despite withdrawing the bulk of their forces from Mogadishu earlier this month in a "tactical" move, al-Shabaab still controls most of southern Somalia. While more aid is getting into the country, some of the worst-affected areas are still without assistance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/16/somali-children-kobe-refugee-ethiopia

Oh dear, we are so lucky we never have to face anything like this, its heartbreaking.