Under the blazing sun, Salado Adan Mohamed puts the finishing touches on her makeshift shelter, cobbled together from branches and fragments of discarded cloth. She has arrived in the southwestern Somalian city of Baidoa, the last refuge for people fleeing the worst drought in the country in a decade.
Along with her three children, the 26-year-old mother walked for five days “without eating” to make the 70km trek from her village to Baidoa. She settled in Muuri, one of 500 camps for displaced people in the city, where aqals — traditional dome-shaped huts — have been hastily built.
Desperate, hungry and thirsty, more and more people are flocking to Baidoa from rural areas of southern Somalia, one of the regions hardest hit by the drought that is engulfing the Horn of Africa.
The UN World Food Programme said that nearly 13 million people, mostly farmers and herders, are going hungry in the region: 5.7 million in Ethiopia, 2.8 million in Kenya and 4.3 million in Somalia — one-quarter of the country’s population.
In Somalia, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the number of people who have left their homes in search of water, food and pasture has doubled to more than 554,000.
Mohamed said that she and her husband saw their crops devoured by swarms of locusts that have ravaged many parts of east Africa. Within just a few months, what little they had left was wiped out when the rains did not arrive for a third straight year since the end of 2020.
“We had three camels which died during the drought season, 10 goats — we ate some, others died and the rest were sold — and all five cattle perished because of the lack of water and pasture,” she said. “We have nothing left.”
With her husband and children, Mohammed started out from her home village for Baidoa, the last hope for many in the stricken region, but her husband, who has tuberculosis, did not make it all the way. Too weak to continue, he turned back. She has not heard from him since.
The countryside around Baidoa is under the control of the al-Shabaab Islamist group, which held the city itself for several years at the height of the insurgency before being driven out in early 2012 by Somalian-led forces.
However, the persistent insecurity means that almost no aid can be sent out of the city. Even in Muuri, Mohamed said that she struggles to provide even one meal per day for her children.
“Sometimes we get something to eat, sometimes not,” she said with a weary look on her face. “If there’s not enough, I sacrifice for my children.”
Humanitarian organizations have been ringing alarm bells on the deteriorating situation in the Horn of Africa for weeks, with fears of a repeat of the 2011 famine in Somalia that cost the lives of 260,000 people. Insufficient rainfall since late 2020 has come as a fatal blow to populations already suffering from locust invasions between 2019 and last year, along with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had our usual reserves of sorghum, but we have eaten through them in the last three years. They are now finished,” said Ibrahim Mohamed Hassan, a blind 60-year-old who walked about 60km with his family to Garas Goof camp in Baidoa.
He said 30 of the 50 families in his home village have fled.
“The others will follow,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses, which are held together with a rubber band.
During the past decade, Baidoa — which lies about 250km northeast of the capital, Mogadishu — has become accustomed to large population influxes. At least 60 percent of its population — now estimated to be between 700,000 and 800,000 — are displaced, and the number of informal settlements has exploded from 77 in 2016 to 572.
However, at the medical center in Tawkal 2 Dinsoor camp, the scale of the current influx is worrying.
“Before, we used to receive about 1,000 internally displaced people, or even less, per month. Today, we host about 2,000 to 3,000,” center supervisor Hassan Ali Amin said.
He said that he has observed cases of malnutrition and diarrhea among children, as well as measles and pneumonia among weakened adults.
“If the situation continues to worsen, we expect to receive thousands, hundreds of thousands of people,” said Mohamednur Mohamed Abdirahman, field director of the British charity Save The Children in Baidoa.
Abdulle Kalar Maaney said that he does not want to imagine the worst-case scenario: a fourth season of poor rainfall.
He said he is “very hopeful” that the rains return next month and that he can to return to his home village. He arrived in Muuri with his wife and 10 children, having lost his last precious possessions: his donkey and his cart. He was counting on the beast to earn some money after they arrived in Baidoa, but the donkey died during the 90km journey to the city and he abandoned the cart.
“I never thought I would end up like this,” said the slender 48-year-old, clad in an oversized shirt.
“I was big and strong when I had my cattle,” he said. “I’ve become sad and skinny since the drought killed them all off.”
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
US President Donald Trump created some consternation in Taiwan last week when he told a news conference that a successful trade deal with China would help with “unification.” Although the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan, Trump’s language struck a raw nerve in Taiwan given his open siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression seeking to “reunify” Ukraine and Russia. On earlier occasions, Trump has criticized Taiwan for “stealing” the US’ chip industry and for relying too much on the US for defense, ominously presaging a weakening of US support for Taiwan. However, further examination of Trump’s remarks in
It is being said every second day: The ongoing recall campaign in Taiwan — where citizens are trying to collect enough signatures to trigger re-elections for a number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — is orchestrated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), or even President William Lai (賴清德) himself. The KMT makes the claim, and foreign media and analysts repeat it. However, they never show any proof — because there is not any. It is alarming how easily academics, journalists and experts toss around claims that amount to accusing a democratic government of conspiracy — without a shred of evidence. These
China on May 23, 1951, imposed the so-called “17-Point Agreement” to formally annex Tibet. In March, China in its 18th White Paper misleadingly said it laid “firm foundations for the region’s human rights cause.” The agreement is invalid in international law, because it was signed under threat. Ngapo Ngawang Jigme, head of the Tibetan delegation sent to China for peace negotiations, was not authorized to sign the agreement on behalf of the Tibetan government and the delegation was made to sign it under duress. After seven decades, Tibet remains intact and there is global outpouring of sympathy for Tibetans. This realization
RSS