By Richard Lough
DADAAB, Kenya — Somali refugees fleeing a deadly mixture of drought and conflict at home said draconian conditions imposed by al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militants had made survival a fight they could not win.
Al-Shabab insurgents control much of southern Somalia, where famine has hit hardest, and the effects of the natural disaster have been compounded by the rebel fighters’ readiness to seize farm animals and forcibly recruit young men.
Wheeling his crippled five-year old daughter on a wooden cart, Noor Ibrahim Hassan queued at dawn with his family to register with the United Nations’ refugee agency, which is battling to deal with up to thousands of new refugees daily.
“Al-Shabab robbed us of livestock, telling us it was for charity. And they stole our men. Many young men were forcefully recruited into their ranks,” said father-of-three Mr. Hassan.
Mr. Hassan’s determination to ride out the drought that has struck 12 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti — the worst drought in 60 years, some aid agencies say — evaporated with the demise of his remaining livestock.
“We’d had no rain for three years. We had lost everything. People were dying around us,” he said.
For days, Mr. Hassan led his family through southern Somalia’s scorched scrub, fearful of running into the Al-Shabab rebels who regularly mete out beheadings and amputations on convicted criminals.
Like many of his compatriots, Mr. Hassan found his way to Kenya’s Dadaab camp, about 80 kilometres from the frontier, and which now hosts more than 400,000 refugees. The registration of new arrivals and distribution of emergency food rations to the continuous wave of new-comers appears an endless task.
“It’s taking longer and longer to process them,” said one aid worker from United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) manning the registration queue.
“We need more man power. We have thousands and thousands who have wristbands,” he said, referring to the colour-coded bands identifying new arrivals awaiting registration.
Freshly dug human graves and rotting cattle carcasses dotted the camp’s arid soil. On the outskirts of one of Dadaab’s three camps, Ifo, hundreds of UNHCR tents have been erected in the past four days and already house about 4,000 people.
UNHCR estimates the new settlement, dubbed Ifo-extension, will eventually host 80,000 refugees.
Crouched under his family of twelve’s new canvas, 40-year old Ali Ibrahim accused Al-Shabab of compounding food insecurity levels by driving out aid agencies.
“This is the biggest drought I have known, yes. But the NGOs that had previously worked around Buale shifted because of threats from Al-Shabab. They had been proving food and medical assistance,” said Ibrahim.
The Islamist militants, fighting to impose a harsh version of sharia law on the war-stricken country, ordered several aid agencies, including the U.N.’s World Food Programme, to halt their operations. The rebels accused the groups of having a hidden agenda.
The rebels lifted the ban early in July before barring the previously excluded agencies from returning.
© Thomson Reuters 2011
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