Somali Woman Gives Birth While Queuing for Food
As a drought and food crisis cripples Somalia, thousands of hungry people crowd long lines every day in Mogadishu, hoping to receive hot donated food. On June 14th, Hawo Ali was just another face in the crowd, until she went into labor.
“Can you imagine! She was trying to find food for her children,” said her husband, Isaq Ali. “We did not deliver her to a doctor or midwife because she gave birth in that place – immediately the baby came.” That place, was an outdoor queue for a neighbourhood kitchen centre, and it was there that Isaq Ali’s wife gave birth to a baby daughter at 12:30 pm.
After that ordeal, Hawo Ali explained how she chose her daughter’s name. “My daughter was named Bulsho – meaning ‘concentrator’ – because many people gathered around me during the birth,” she said from her home, as she held her new baby.
At 30 years old, Hawo Ali also has five other children, all boys. “This is my first daughter,” she said, “and she has made me really happy, even though she has come to this world at a terrible time.”
Hawo Ali and her family aren’t originally from Mogadishu, they only moved here recently from Bay Region, due to the drought disaster.
“We were displaced after all our domestic animals died from the current drought, because there has been no rain for the last three rainy seasons,” her 52 year old husband Isaq said. “Most of the wells in the area have dried up, and it was nearly impossible to get clean water for the family. It was taking 3-4 hours to get only 20 litres of water for the mothers and the children. Water trucks were travelling 165 kilometres to deliver water to our area; and the price kept going up.” In the past month in their community, the price of water rose 50%, to $15 a barrel. For a poor rural Somali family with little income, water became simply unaffordable.
“We lost all our domestic animals due to a lack of water and pasture,” Isaq continues. “I sold my small farm in order to survive. Life became intolerable, and we decided to move to Mogadishu with the small amount of money that I received for my farm. In fact, I am not sure that we will ever get back (to Bay Region) because I have sold my farm and there is now no link to our past life.”
After selling the farm, Isaq’s family travelled for two days to the capital. Families like his are fleeing the relatively safe rural areas, and moving to the dangerous city of Mogadishu, because that’s where they can get food and aid.
“The reason we preferred to arrive in Mogadishu – which we knew was a warzone – was because Mogadishu is the only place that we can get humanitarian assistance,” he explains. “There is no humanitarian assistance now in rural areas, as international NGOs cannot get access; and there are no local NGOs which are currently operating in our area” (in Bay Region.)
When the displaced family arrived from the countryside, they were welcomed by the local community. But the locals are scarcely able to provide for themselves, let alone new arrivals.
“We have gotten the food daily from the food kitchen since we arrived,” Isaq said. “The reason that the community cannot help, is that they are now hosting thousands of new arrivals from rural areas, and they no longer have any capacity to assist us – except for providing some small land for us to live.”
For now they have a room to sleep in, but it is bare of furniture, and with the new baby there are more needs. “We don’t have sleeping foams or clean clothes that we can use for the new child,” a worried Isaq said.
His wife agrees. “As you see, we are lying on the ground and we don’t have any mattress or utensils. We ask international and local NGOs to support us. In fact, we need urgent support. I fear for our future. God’s blessing on us all at this horrible time.”
The room is crowded for such a large family. In addition to Hawo Ali’s children, Isaq has a second wife, and seven more children to provide for. Although they are receiving daily cooked food from SAACID, a local relief organization, he is worried about others who are even worse off.
“I am extremely concerned about the impact of the current drought on the well-being of children, women and the general population in Somalia,” said Isaq, “because the mothers and children are so weak and they are at increasing risk to die from malnutrition.”
It has been more than two decades since the Somali Republic collapsed. The Somali population has endured periods of extreme violence; weather extremes; and the long anarchic toil of those decades has ground down people’s hope – hopelessness and despair are now the norm.
Mogadishu, as the largest population cluster in the country, has continued to see political turmoil, as factions continue to vie for control and power. International governments have concentrated on political solutions, and have largely ignored developing durable indigenous service delivery. The result is that Somalis remain bereft of any substantial primary service sector; and are left to their own devices. The results are that Somalia remains in the bottom five percent of virtually every worldwide development indicator.