Fresh aid to Somalia
Oxfam's Hassan Noor has just returned from Mogadishu. He described living conditions there as “some of the worst I have ever seen.”
See also Somalia crisis 'Africa's worst'
I flew into Mogadishu in a plane full with nine tonnes of Oxfam aid. We took blankets, mosquito nets, medical supplies and plastic sheets for families to build temporary shelters. We also took 3,500 buckets. Many of the families who have fled the fighting have lost everything. They can use the buckets to carry clean water and store milk for their children. At the airport, I was met by some of our local partners who quickly unloaded the aid for distribution.
Photo credit: Hassan Noor
Update: 2 June 2009
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People are still fleeing Mogadishu – every day more buses, vans and donkey carts carry families out of the city along this road, called the Afgooye corridor. In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of people have fled along this road. There are many camps set up nearby for people fleeing the violence. As well as the new arrivals, there are about 400,000 people who have taken refuge in Afgooye over the past two years.
Photo: Hassan Noor
The living conditions in the camps in Afgooye are some of the worst I have ever seen. Families are sheltering in tiny huts, pieced together from plastic bags and sticks. When the rains come they are washed away. Oxfam is about to provide 10,000 new shelters, which will improve the lives of around 70,000 people. The most urgent need is for shelter, but people also desperately need clean water, food and medicine.
Photo: Hassan Noor
In such basic conditions, people easily get sick – and there are few health services. I saw young children lying on the floor of the shelters, too ill to move.
Photo: Hassan Noor
Many children are suffering from diarrhoea and cholera. We have set up this tent as an Oral Rehydration Treatment centre, where mothers can bring their children for help. The fighting has had an enormous impact on children's health. One doctor told me that there is so much gunpowder in the air in Mogadishu at the moment that it is making children sick.
Photo: Hassan Noor
These engineers are celebrating after we managed to expand the water system in the camps. Oxfam water tanks such as these provide the only source of clean, safe water to many families in Afgooye, and have now been expanded to reach another 78,000 people. In total, we now provide water to over 200,000 people in Afgooye. We are hoping to increase the supply further over the coming months.
Photo: Hassan Noor
However, despite Oxfam's efforts, the need for water remains huge. People queue for hours to get clean water. This girl is adding her jerry can container to a long queue at one of our water points in Afgooye.
Photo: Hassan Noor
All of our work in Somalia is done through local Somali partners. The man with red hair, fourth from left, is a public health expert who teaches new arrivals at the camp how to stay healthy. When people leave the city and arrive in camps – which are so basic and overcrowded – diseases can quickly spread. Oxfam has also distributed mosquito nets to young mothers to help prevent the spread of malaria.
Photo: Hassan Noor
I met this young boy, named Abdi, in Afgooye as he waited to collect water. He was exhausted after his family fled Mogadishu when the fighting broke out, and he was searching for the shade of a tree to wait under and escape the burning daytime heat.
Photo: Hassan Noor
I was struck most by the terrible conditions of people's shelters. I took this photo looking out of a shelter where Halima Abdi and her six children are staying. She told me, "Our biggest problem is shelter. If people see this house and the conditions that we live in they will be shocked. It is raining heavily during the nights – without shelter it is a disaster for us. My children are sick and I'm worried what will happen to them. They don't have enough water or food either."
Photo: Hassan Noor
