An unprecedented drought is devastating Somalia and following five consecutive poor rainy seasons, the current drought has surpassed 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 droughts in duration and severity.
Due to its strategic location along the border, Dollow hosts a high number of displaced people from Gedo, Bay and Bakol regions of Somalia as well as refugees and returnees from the neighboring countries – Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Norwegian Refugee Council staff in Dollow met with Sadia Muhumed who recently fled from Jarati district, in Ethiopia. Sadia came here looking for humanitarian assistance after losing all their livestock due to the drought in east Africa.
Sadia fled with her six children and settled in Ladan IDP camp, which is around 1.5 Km away from Dollow district, Gedo region. Sadia is the only breadwinner of the family. She didn’t have a permanent source of income, so she used to do casual work to sustain her children’s food needs.
“The drought was extremely devastating. It affected us badly. We lost our livestock – I had more than one hundred goats, and twenty-one cows, I lost all of them” says Sadia.
In January 2023, Sadia was registered as one of the beneficiaries of an integrated cash programme implemented by the Norwegian Refugee Council and funded by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office through the Somali Cash Consortium. The three months cash assistance project was designed to support people affected by the drought in Somalia.
As part of the integrated response, Sadia also benefited from water trucking and hygiene promotion from World Vision, healthcare services through the health post (vaccination, diagnosis and treatment) by Trocaire. In addition, Safia has been selected to benefit from the ongoing sheltersupport from International Organization for Migration (IOM),
Sadia had an extended family of six children, she was also one of the newly arrived drought displaced households. She also had a severely malnourished child, as part of the the cash assistance project, she received two months of cash assistance worth $US 110 each which helped her to buy food for her children. “I have received $US 110 for two months. The money was deposited into my mobile money account, I had the choice to buy everything I needed. The two months of cash assistance helped us a lot when our conditions were very difficult. We used the cash assistance to cope with the drought situation. I could access nutritious food, and I used the cash to buy food and clean water for me and my children.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Norwegian Refugee Council.
