Desperate for Food, Somali Women Tell Their Stories

With  serious drought and an extremely long war, people in many regions of Somalia are suffering from a serious lack of food this year. The number of people in a food security crisis has risen to 2.85 million, and this is expected to worsen in the second half of 2011 with food prices hitting a new record high. Two years of poor rains have deprived many more people of food in the Horn of Africa nation.

In the midst of this dire situation, the Somali relief organisation SAACID has been running a food kitchen programme since November 2007 in all 16 districts of Mogadishu City, and continues to provide free hot meals to those affected.

One life positively influenced by SAACID’s work, is 63 year old mother of eight Kaltuumo.  Although three of her children died while they were infants, she lives with her remaining children as one extended family.

Kaltuumo was born in Mogadishu, and married when she was twenty years old. Her husband worked at the Mogadishu seaport as a porter but died eleven years ago. The family’s source of income is her daughters, who sometimes work as part-time housemaids in their neighborhood. Two of Kaltuumo’s sons are semi-skilled workers but unfortunately cannot find employment.

“Our life was good before the collapse of the previous regime of Siyad Barre, because there was peace and stability and every one could get work and work without fear. However, after the collapse of the government of Somalia in 1991, life became hard because of insecurity, so if you search and seek for work, you may be asked about your clan identity, or need a sponsor. I think that is why it became difficult to get work.”

Kaltuumo’s family depends completely on the SAACID food kitchen, and has done so since the onset of this wet feeding program. (Wet feeding, means that the recipients get food that has already been cooked.)

“For the last two years, our livelihood has mainly depended on the food we get from this food kitchen. With the food that we receive from the kitchen, we have no problem of thinking about what we shall eat, because we get one meal per day from the food kitchen.”

Sitting on top of a hill in Mogadishu, Bakara market was a nerve center for much of Southern Somalia. It is arguably the most populated part of Mogadishu, and perhaps the largest legitimate component of southern Somalia’s economy remaining after two decades of chaos and war. However, recent fighting has paralyzed business activities in Bakara market and other small markets within the city, as the conflict has hampered the movement of people and transport.

The work stoppage due to the fighting has had a drastic effect on 65 year old Habiibo and her family.

‘The family has no income because my sons are currently unemployed. They used to work at Bakara Market as porters, but now the market is almost closed due to ongoing conflict, and there is not much activity in that market.’

Although her sons sometimes get temporary employment, the income earned is not enough to support the entire family. “Even though, my two sons are now jobless, they sometimes get day-labour jobs. They sometimes work as masons or as porters. What they earn from their temporarily work is a help for the family, but it does not meet our minimum expenses.”

Habiibo has been a beneficiary of a SAACID food kitchen for two years. “The food we get here is very high quality food, and it guarantees that we can survive as our income is too low from the other meagre amount that we are able to earn. With this food, we are able to eat 1-2 good meals a day.”

Somalia normally experiences two major harvests a year, in January and August, mostly in the southern regions. The last season failed due to the drought and the next is likely to reach about half of a normal harvest, again due to insufficient rains. Poor rainfall performance and a lack of food access, heavily affect people’s livelihoods.

High cereal prices continue to affect the country due to a very low supply of local cereals on the market leading to an increase in the cost of living and a weakening of people’s purchasing power. Coupled with that, the poor rainfall also resulted in a significant number of livestock deaths and reduced value of livestock for the pastoralists, as they have lost body condition.

Adversely affected by these circumstances is Salado, a single mother of nine. Salado and her children, from a poor farming family, are one of the families who have been displaced by drought from the Bay Region.

“Our life was not good for the last two years because there was not enough rain in our area; and there has been no humanitarian support, (due to the conflict.) “We have survived that long drought; and now we hope to survive in Mogadishu, despite the ongoing fighting.”

Salado and the other families who have recently arrived in Mogadishu fleeing from drought have mostly received support from the community and business groups in her neighbourhood.

Conditions are somewhat better in the northern regions due to localized rains. While some rains have been reported in the central and northeastern regions of Somalia, given the last two years of mostly poor rains, many poor pastoralists there have lost all their animals and become destitute.

SAACID has taken part in the resettling of some of these families and providing ongoing access to hot lifesaving meals through its citywide kitchen network. Salado’s family depends completely on the food kitchen for survival, and have done so since arriving in Mogadishu.

“Currently, our life is good. When we came to Mogadishu we got support from local communities… and we also have food access to a food kitchen,” she says. “That food is enough for the whole family for lunch, dinner and breakfast.”

Since the programme has been running for years, SAACID’s long running feeding programme has provided millions of hot meals to the most marginalized people throughout the city of Mogadishu.