Khadra Osman Ismail collected tyre tubes, empty sacks, old clothes and boxes, then sat down to stitch together the new roof of her shelter in Hargeisa, capital of Somalia’s self-declared republic of Somaliland.
“This is the only home we have known for the past five years," she said, adding that the new roof would be a great improvement. Ismail and her family are among 5,500 internally displaced families living in a crowded settlement known as State House, site of the region’s destroyed, unused official residence. It is one of six main IDP settlements in Hargeisa.
Many of the IDPs from south-central Somalia (considered by the government of Somaliland to be refugees) lack clan support, according to Abib Ahmed Hirsi, programme officer for Comprehensive Community-Based Rehabilitation in Somaliland (CCBRS), a local NGO. Livelihood support and help with relocation are among the challenges facing the IDPs.
“Somaliland is a separate country [from Somalia]; when those displaced by violence in south-central Somalia get here, they are vulnerable and have no support,” Hirsi said. “If only these people could be reintegrated into the community. Their situation is really tragic, they cannot go back home because violence and insecurity persists. We continue to see children arriving alone [without parents] and widows who have to fend for their children all alone.”
Surviving on less than US$1 a day, most of the IDPs engage in casual labour and petty trade. Ismail’s family survives on what the husband makes collecting and selling firewood or sticks used for fencing while she sells vegetables, on commission, for other traders.
“On a good day, we earn about 7,000 Somaliland shillings [about $1]; I have to make it stretch but it is not easy. Most days I will make Anjeera [a sort of pancake] and make it last until dinner,” Ismail said.
Initially displaced by civil strife into Ethiopia, Ismail’s family lived as refugees until they returned to Hargeisa five years ago but could not return to their home due to drought.
“The government has been promising to give us land but this has not happened; imagine sharing one latrine with eight other families [about 24 people]!”
Protecting the vulnerable
CCBRS, a local partner for the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, as well as other UN agencies, runs programmes on child protection, prevention and response services linked to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), assistance to survivors of female genital mutilation/cutting, rape and SGBV. The NGO has the support of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for the child protection services and UNHCR for SGBV.
On SGBV, Hirsi said “as soon as we receive information regarding an incident, our staff go there and take the survivor to the nearest police station to record a statement, then to the hospital for treatment and medical evaluation. We also provide counselling and often refer the survivors to legal aid services.”
A legal clinic under the Faculty of Law at the University of Hargeisa takes over cases referred by CCBRS and other NGOs.
Mohamed Jama, director of the clinic, told IRIN: “We provide free legal aid to refugees, asylum seekers, IDPs, migrants, people living with HIV/AIDS, victims of human trafficking and specific human rights violations such as illegal detention.
“The majority of our clients are women, so we have female lawyers in the unit; we hold regular meetings with settlement elders and we organize workshops to sensitize them against human rights violations and sexual and gender-based violence.”
Jama said the legal unit made huge strides in 2009, establishing a presence in all the IDP settlements in the city, “which we visit weekly to provide legal aid right where the IDPs are instead of them coming here to the university”.
According to UNHCR, Somaliland has an estimated 67,000 IDPs but others put the number at more than 75,000.
Aid workers say the majority of IDPs in Somaliland are former refugees who lived in Ethiopia and Djibouti. Others left their homes due to drought, poverty and lack of opportunities.
Long-term solution
Abdoulaye Barry, UNHCR head of the Hargeisa sub-office, said finding a long-term solution for the IDPs in Somaliland was being complicated by a lack of adequate funding and the temporary nature of some of the settlements - specifically State House and Stadium, as well as smaller IDP pockets around the city.
The government has indicated the IDPs have to be relocated. However, no timeframe has been given for such a move.
“At the moment, some of the biggest IDP settlements [State House and Stadium] in Hargeisa are temporary, UN agencies cannot put up permanent infrastructure as the IDPs can lose out any time,” Barry said.
Anwar Mohamed Ige, director-general of the Ministry of Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Reintegration, told IRIN on 16 June that the government had a plan to resettle the IDPs but it was on hold until after presidential elections - scheduled for 26 June.
"We will identify the proper land to resettle them and we will relocate all the displaced after the elections," Ige said.
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