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Mogadishu: Displaced People At Risk
Somalia / 21.10.11
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Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, is filled with waste. The country has suffered 20 years of civil war with no real central administration, including waste management.
The water sold from donkey carts in Mogadishu’s streets is often unsafe and brackish; but there is no functioning water system in the city.
More than 150,000 newly displaced people arrived in Mogadishu from drought-affected central regions of Somalia between July and October 2011. Most of them settled in makeshift camps such Rajo camp, located on a city beach.
The lack of hygiene in the camps leaves people highly vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, and pneumonia.
Finding food and water is a daily challenge for displaced people.
Regular food distributions are conducted by local and international non-governmental organisations.
Médecins Sans Frontières distributes ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to families with young children every week to prevent malnutrition.
Médecins Sans Frontières staff screen a child for malnutrition in one of the health posts the organisation runs in the makeshift camps.
A sick child is treated in one of four Médecins Sans Frontières intensive therapeutic feeding centers (ITFCs) in Mogadishu. Children are kept in the ITFCs when they have health complications in addition to severe malnutrition, which can put them at risk of dying.
Mothers are also given food in the ITFCs. Proper nutrition increases their ability to breastfeed.
Newly displaced people often suffer from high levels of exhaustion and dehydration.
Displaced children in Somalia have rarely been immunised against measles. The health system there has deteriorated for decades. Outbreaks of the disease are frequent and deadly.
There are few international staff working inside Mogadishu due to security threats. Médecins Sans Frontières relies largely on its Somali staff.
After several interruptions in medical activities due to security incidents, Médecins Sans Frontières made a rare exception to its rule of having no armed protection, and in July 1991 began hiring private armed guards.
Gunmen are everywhere in Mogadishu. A white piece of fabric attached to the barrel of a gun usually signifies peaceful intentions.
Somali staff compose 95 percent of Médecins Sans Frontières teams in the country.
Staff collect testimonies from displaced patients to better understand the humanitarian situation in the areas where they come from and that Médecins Sans Frontières cannot access.
Huge numbers of Somalis have left the country’s central regions to seek refuge in the capital, Mogadishu, since July. They have had to leave due to poor agricultural production, loss of livestock because of drought, increasing prices, and perpetual insecurity. Once they reach Mogadishu, however, they are vulnerable to a host of health problems.
