SOMALIA: Numbers of IDPs overwhelming border town

At least 8,000 Somalis who fled violence in the capital, Mogadishu, are facing hunger, disease and lack of shelter in Dobley town, near the Kenyan border, local officials said.

"Our estimate is that since the end of April, between 5,000 and 8,000 have arrived in Dobley," Ali Hussein Nur, the district commissioner, told IRIN.

Households in the small town, he added, were hosting two to three displaced families each. Some of the homeless people had set up makeshift shelters under trees. Nur said buses and trucks carrying internally displaced persons (IDPs) had been arriving daily from Mogadishu. "We had three buses bringing about 70 people this morning [11 September]."

Nur said the number of displaced people arriving in Dobley had risen recently. "We have seen more people coming in late July and August than at any time since February," he added, noting that some had crossed the border into refugee camps in Kenya.

Ali Hussein Goni, an official from the Swedish African Welfare Alliance (SAWA), said the IDPs were facing food shortages, lack of shelter and medicines.

“There has been no food distribution in the town for about five months,” said Nur. "We have been making appeals but it seems no one is listening."

Goni said that Dobley, with an estimated population of 15,000 before the influx, had seen the number of residents almost double. "On every street and under every tree you will find people sheltering," he added.

"In my own house, my family of seven is hosting nine people. It is like that in every house," he said.

Abdiaziz Ilmi, 35, who arrived from Mogadishu on 8 September, said: "I came here on Saturday with my family of 12, including my 70-year-old mother, to escape the violence," he told IRIN. He and his family are sharing a compound. "Twenty-four of us live in the compound."

He said so far they had depended on the kindness of the locals. "God bless them, they have been helping us with water and whatever else they could afford."

"WFP [UN World Food Programme] is in the process of verifying IDP caseloads in Lower and Middle Juba regions and the possibility of accessing Dobley," Said Warsame, WFP Somalia Information Officer, told IRIN.

Nur said both the IDPs and locals need immediate assistance. With the onset of the ‘deyr’ rainy season expected in early October and the holy month of Ramadan starting in a few days, many families will face serious food shortages.

"The people [locals] have exhausted their capacity to help," he said.

Persistent insecurity in parts of southern Somalia has limited the ability of aid agencies to provide aid.

Since intense fighting between Ethiopian-backed government troops and insurgents began in February, at least 1,000 people reportedly have been killed and more than 400,000 displaced.