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A number of Islamic Relief staff from the UK recently returned from a visit to the famine struck region of Somalia. A few of them have recounted their stories below:
A day in Somalia
Today my visit to Mogadishu Somalia was a personal journey that was enhanced by the presence of Dr Hany El Banna. A visit filled with questions and more questions to which I had few answers. Upon arrival into the country, remembering that we had arrived in the capital, it was clearly evident this is a place filled with conflict and war coupled with the drought that has hit them hard. Straight away the first question came to mind, if this is the state of the capital, what’s the state of the rest of the country?
There were 3 parts to the day; visiting the Islamic Relief supported camp; visit to a camp yet without any support; and finally a hospital where Islamic Relief are providing support.
Dr Hany asked a simple question upon picking up some sand at our first camp ‘Silica’ we visited ‘Can you turn the desert green?’ My question I’m posing right now, can we turn the desert green? What role will we play in helping turn the situation around for these people?
We must believe in long term solutions and help them turn the desert green
Where the US embassy once stood is now the home for 19,000 displaced people; it is where Silica camp is situated. Makeshift houses occupied the land as far as I could see, and walking into the camp, the makeshift toilets was just a big hole dug up in a corner infested with flies; a recipe for diseases to spread.
Dr Hany’s reminder at this stage about the people in these camps being our employers, and we will be questioned about our response during their suffering was a daunting thought. Are we doing them justice? How much have we done for them?
Thinking a camp of 19,000 was bad, the next camp had 50-60,000 occupants. This camp wasn’t yet facilitated for, and with 25 camps just in Mogadishu, it sends a shiver down my back as to how these people are to survive. Furthermore these people are the ones who have managed to reach the camps, how about those who haven’t?
A common sight in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, camps surrounds with litter
This second camp was visited very briefly. There was rubbish everywhere, the only way the rubbish was being disposed was by burning it, and very little was being burnt, the rest was just lying around all over the camp. It was situated where the government buildings used to stand, and the remains stood isolated in the distance covered in bullet holes, as well as shells still visible scattered on the outskirts of the camp.
Someone’s 'home', now, they must be desperate to leave everything to come to live in one of these...
The last visit of the day was to Banadir Hospital, this was by far the hardest part of the day for me. This is where Islamic Relief has a diarrhoea clinic as well as support for severely malnourished children. As much as it was positive to know the efforts of the people I have the pleasure of working with, volunteers and donors alike, had saved the lives of everyone I was seeing in the hospital, who without the basic support wouldn’t survive. 'Whoever saves a life is like saving the whole of humanity'- those helping us reach the people in Somalia are saving lives. However seeing a 3 month old malnourished child Ruqayya with just bones and an inflamed stomach while hearing another continuously crying in anguish throughout the period we were there was heart breaking, and I couldn’t stay there to see any more. What if this was my child? What if this was your child? What measures would we take to stop our children from this anguish? How are those mothers feeling seeing their own flesh and blood in such a state? What did they do to deserve this? What crime did they commit besides being born in a war torn country suffering from a severe drought?
There were rooms filled with such children accompanied by their mothers as I walked through the corridor. It was a horrifying scene which will never leave me. It was too much to take in.
3 month old Ruqayya being treated at the Banadir Hospital, thanks to YOU, she still lives
Dr Hany reminded us of the hadith ‘the best of sadaqah is from the poor who is struggling who gives to the needy in secrecy’, as well as mentioning ‘give from the wealth you have been blessed with’ it truly did remind us of the blessing we are blessed with, and which we often take for granted. I believe the people who help and support come into this bracket; who give from their hard earned wealth and dedicate their time for those in need.
The head of emergencies in Somalia explained that only 10% of the work Islamic Relief is covering in Somalia is in the capital, as all the NGO and organisations that are delivering aid are targeting Mogadishu. Islamic Relief due to its infrastructure are able to reach the remote areas in South Central Somalia like Bay, Bakul, Lower Shabelle and Baidoa that others can’t reach. 300 trucks are delivering water to over 200,000 people daily in these regions. Islamic Relief is aiming to get people back into their villages, with 3000 people already taken back and will be supported in their own villages. Other organisations are also requesting the support of Islamic Relief to deliver their aid as they have been impressed with the Islamic Relief set up and capacity in Somalia.
My final thoughts of the day were what are the solutions? And what has this visit taught me?
It has sent me on a spiritual path of gratitude to Allah, who has saved us from the test of poverty, yet also the awareness of the test we have of being of service to these people. ‘If a part of the body hurts, the whole body feels the pain’ is the example of the believers we have been taught by the hadith of the Prophet Sallalahu alaihi wasallam, do we feel the pain of the people of Mogadishu? Do we feel the pain of the mother whose child is so weak and malnourished, yet in so much anguish that its cry is continuous yet faint.
The solution I feel has to be finding a strategy which will prevent this catastrophe from reoccurring rather than running to support the people once the emergency hits the region. By finding and implementing long term solutions, not just in Somalia but in all regions where disasters hit, is what will get results that will have a lasting effect and provide long term benefits to the communities worldwide, as evident from the Islamic Relief water for life project in Mandera, Kenya. We were reminded that the situation in Mandera would be much worse than that in Somalia had it not been for the intervention of the water for life project. With the structure and presence Islamic Relief has in these areas, it gives hope to the people, and it gives hope to me that the tireless efforts of my team in the North West; volunteers, donors and supporters as well as the teams around the country are making a difference and really are saving lives.
May Allah help all those suffering in the world and take service from us to help find long term solutions to eradicate poverty.
Muhammed Banglawala, Islamic Relief North West Fundraiser
A Day in Famine
Mogadishu
When I first got the call telling me I was going to Somalia I was a little excited, yet apprehensive. It is a great honour to be going on a field trip for Islamic Relief but also a huge responsibility. We have a duty to tell the stories of our brothers and sisters in Somalia. On top of that, I was asking myself, did I really want to see what was out there? How bad would things be? How would I cope emotionally?
As we drove out of Mogadishu (capital of Somalia) Airport, the first thing we saw were soldiers, military vehicles and buildings filled with bullet holes. As we continued down the pothole filled road, it was clear the country had been in conflict for the last 20 years. Add famine to that and a humanitarian crisis is inevitable. The question we all started asking was if this is the state of the capital, what is the rest of the country like?
Our day consisted of visiting two camps, one supported by Islamic Relief and one not, as well as an Islamic Relief supported hospital. Our visit was greatly enhanced by the wisdom and company of Dr Hany El Banna, founder of Islamic Relief. As soon as we arrived at Islamic Relief supported camp Silica, Dr Hany asked us all to pick up the red sand and posed the question: ‘Can you turn the desert green?' What Dr Hany was alluding to was long term water solutions; something Islamic Relief has started work on in other parts of Africa.
Can we turn the desert green?
Camp Silica was situated where the US embassy once stood and now housed 19,000 people. Walking further into the camp, all I could see was thousands of make shift ‘tents’, litter everywhere and a lavatory which was just a hole in the ground.
Living conditions in the camps
These were indeed the perfect conditions for disease to spread. Upon seeing all this, all I could think was how did we allow this to happen? Why had we as Muslims, when part of our duty is to look out for our brothers and sisters, allowed this to happen? Staring at the tent below, Dr Hany asked me ‘how much would you pay for this?' I remained silent. He asked me again ‘how much would you pay for this’? I replied 'I wouldn’t buy this tent'. His response was that this was a family’s home, all they had, their dignity, their pride, their life.
How much would you pay for this?
He told me to look with my heart, not my eyes. I did. It hit me very hard. How bad must things have been out ‘there’ for someone to leave all they had to come and live in these conditions. I stood there shaking my head thinking how we had let these people down. How they were still somehow the lucky ones, at least they had made it to camp. What about all those who hadn’t? Dr Hany told us these people are our employers, we are here to serve them. He reminded us that we will one day be questioned as to how we responded to their suffering. This weighed heavily on my mind; are we doing enough now? Are YOU doing enough?
As we were leaving, a two year old girl came out from between two tents, smiling and gave me a high five. Her father followed her and told us they were hungry. But he wanted nothing for himself, just food for his daughter. The helpless look in his eyes knowing he couldn't feed his beautiful, innocent child was heart breaking. Imagine having to rely on someone else to do that. Put yourself in his shoes; imagine not being able to provide for your own child.
We then drove through the war torn city to another camp not yet facilitated by a charity. It stood opposite what was once old government buildings and empty bullet shells were scattered across the floor. The camp already houses 50-60,000 people and this number is growing day by day. Our visit was brief but the images will stay with me forever. There was rubbish heaped everywhere. The only way to dispose of it is to burn it, yet with the growing number of refugees there is accumulating litter and little disposal.
Rubbish everywhere
The final part of the day was a visit to Banadir Hospital. Here Islamic Relief have set up specialist clinics to help tackle the health challenges faced by these people. Islamic Relief is only able to support this hospital because of you and all the time you have given as volunteers to make things happen. Our work is made possible by the support you have given and the generosity of our donors. This was the little comfort I was able to take from my visit. It was by far the most emotional and hardest part of the day, not just for me, but for the whole team.
First, we visited the severely malnourished children’s clinics; one of which was set up in the waiting room of the hospital. As we moved through the hospital the horror of the crisis became clearer. Mothers and children were everywhere. There weren’t enough beds so children were being treated on the floor. The rooms were overcrowded, the corridors had no windows and cries of pain filled our ears. Looking out of the ‘window’ (essentially a hole in the wall) I could see rubbish surrounding the grounds of the hospital. It was surreal. Children were being treated in one room whilst right next door workers were completing what would no doubt be a room that was soon to be over crowded too.
It was here that we met severely malnourished 3 month old Ruqaya.
3 month old Ruqayyah
Seeing her and hearing children screaming in pain, was unbearable. Unbearable for all of us. We all needed a few moments to ourselves to regain composure. How did we allow this to happen?! What would I do if this was my daughter? How must her mother be feeling right now, seeing her daughter in this condition? What more can we do? We must help these people. Sadly Ruqayyah is actually one of the ‘lucky’ ones. One of the few who make it to a hospital. It is because of your support we were able to save her. But there are hundreds of thousands more like her who need your help.
We then visited the ladies diarrhoea clinic where we met the lady below. She was suffering from life threatening diarrhoea. She was so fragile, so skinny. Almost skeletal. The look of emptiness on her face was painful. I was finding it difficult to remain composed whilst taking a photo so we can show you the situation. All I kept thinking was what if this was my mother? My mother was born in Kenya, not far at all from the famine region. This could have been her. Imagine if this was your mother. How would that make you feel?
How would you feel if this was your mother?
Hassan, Head of Emergencies in Somalia, detailed how Islamic Relief now only concentrates 10% of its efforts in Mogadishu with the other 90% aimed at those outside the capital. This is because all the other aid agencies are targeting Mogadishu and are unable to reach the remote areas of south central Somalia. As we have been based in Somalia since 2006, we have the largest operations and infrastructure of all the NGOs and can reach the isolated areas like Bay, Bakul, Lower Shabelle and Baidoa. We have 300 trucks delivering water to over 200,000 people every day in the aforementioned regions. We have already taken 3,000 displaced families back to their homes and are in the process of facilitating for more. Other NGOs from all over the world are requesting our help in the field to deliver aid.
The trip to Somalia has been a very emotional and a hard hitting one for me. I am a lot more grateful for everything that I have. For how genuinely easy my life is compared to our brothers and sisters in East Africa and for all the comforts I have been blessed with. It was amazing to see your donations in action; it gave me a sense of pride – pride at the fact that I am part of a vehicle that is saving lives. But it also made me realise how great the need is. We must come together to help those suffering, not just in the famine hit region but all over the world. We must do more. As I write this all that is running through my mind is we must do more. We have a duty, a responsibility, to help our brothers and sisters.
But what is the solution? Do we keep responding to the emergency? Do we only get involved when the situation is declared a famine? Or do we do something else? I believe the solution lies in prevention – the saying ‘prevention is better than the cure’ comes to mind. We cannot make it rain, but we can implement long term water solutions which will prevent the situation becoming so dire. The perfect example of this is our Water for Life project in Mandera, Kenya. Indeed were it not for our work the situation in Mandera would have been a lot worse than it currently is in Somalia. Mitigating projects like this are the solution not just here, but all over the world; whether it is dams, providing water, building the banks of rivers etc, with our vast experience, infrastructure and your support, we give hope to these people.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, but more so for your support. Without you Islamic Relief wouldn’t be where it is today. With your continued help and dedication, we really can make a difference and save lives. May Allah SWT bless you all for your efforts and ease the suffering of the poverty stricken across the world.
Zeshan Ali, Islamic Relief West Midlands Fundraiser
Welcome to Mogadishu… NOT
When we landed at the airport in Mogadishu we were deceptively impressed when we were greeted by all the smiles and the view of the Indian Ocean right next to the landing strip and the airport looked as normal as any other I have seen.
Our man in Somalia Abdul Fattah met us and sorted out all our paper work and we were at the doors to leave the airport within minutes. As we stood at the door we really didn’t realise what was waiting on the other side. It was a barrier to reality.
The doors opened, what we could only describe as chaos was under way. Soldiers heavily armed everywhere, each one shouting instructions and directions, each one almost trying to stamp their authority on those entering the city.
Our team in Somalia picked us up, Alhamdulillah they were able to manoeuvre through a complex maze of different personalities thanks to their local experience and knowledge. As the pot hole riddled road threw us up and down on our way to the hotel, we started to see Somalia for what it was: a war zone.
Buildings were battered, roads in tatters, pick-up trucks filled with armed men hanging on to the back and heavy armoured vehicles roaming the streets up and down. I guess this is the only way the transitional government controls this area of Mogadishu. The safe zone non-Somalis can move between is in a 5 kilometre radius. It’s the kind of stuff you see in those Hollywood movies where the FBI agent goes to the Middle East to solve some terrorist related case. Except none of us were sat in a cinema and pop corn was the last thing on our minds. Every man and his dog walking around armed to the teeth. We should have known really, when we saw question number 16 on the immigration form which asked “what weapon are you bringing with you” asking to specify make and model.
Zia Salik, Islamic Relief North East Fundraiser
13/08/2011 - 18/08/2011
13-year-old Abdul Illahi is on the road to recovery
I was a bit apprehensive when I was asked to go back out to Mogadishu. This was because of the magnitude and scale of the disaster that I had witnessed in my previous trip to Somalia just three weeks ago. I have been an aid worker for seventeen years and it still resonates as one of the most distressing and harrowing trips I have ever been on.
I had to prepare myself to re-visit a place that was in severe crisis and had left me with vivid pictures of the suffering that women and children in particular were enduring. I had to psych myself up to go there. After all, the people in East Africa have no means of escape and I couldn’t shake 13 year-old Abdul Illahi – the boy on the brink of starvation that I met on my first visit – out of my mind.
The trip had two purposes. The first was to attend a humanitarian forum meeting, a gathering involving representatives of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – an influential grouping of 56 Muslim states – and aid agencies such as Islamic Relief, the Turkish Red Crescent and UN organisations. The aim of the meeting was to have a better coordinated response from the humanitarian community to the current crisis in East Africa.
The key issue discussed at the event was access. Access in conflict zones is challenging for aid agencies. Islamic Relief and the Turkish Red Crescent have been able to gain and maintain access to local communities in some of the remotest areas of South Central Somalia – the epicentre of this crisis. But both organisations need more support to enable them to gear up their response to help more people.
The scale of the disaster is so huge that speaker after speaker was stressing the importance of getting governments and other donor organisations to commit more funds to the relief effort and prevent the loss of tens of thousands of lives. This was a recurring theme in contributions to the debate from Kiki Gbeho (from UNOCHA), Mark Bowden (the UN’s Somalia co-ordinator) and Dr Hany El Banna chair of the Humanitarian Forum. The conflict in Somalia has been unabated since 1991. It shows no signs of being resolved, and it is making it difficult for aid agencies to get through and provide assistance to those who urgently require it.
Mark Bowden said we have to remain impartial as an aid community and we have to be pragmatic and realistic about the task in hand. We need to understand the gravity of the situation, with 12.4 million people now in need of aid and 3.7 million in Somalia alone.
The job at hand is not impossible. Everyone around the table was stressing that we must find a way to navigate our way around the political landscape. Whether that means using Unicef, the Turkish Red Crescent or Islamic Relief to channel aid, we should not let politics or a troubled political backdrop slip agencies stand in the way of that aid getting through.
South Central Somalia
The second objective of the trip was to see the progress Islamic Relief has made one month after the launch of the Disasters Emergency Committee’s East Africa Crisis Appeal.
The last time I visited Mogadishu I had experienced the most harrowing and distressing scenes.
Abdul Illahi symbolised for me exactly what we are dealing with. As I said in my previous blog, when I left Mogadishu I left Abdul Illahi in hospital. He was always on mind during all of my interviews. When I was asked how he was I wasn’t able to answer as I was unaware of what had happened to him. Our teams had been trying to locate Abdul Illahi but during a crisis it is very easy to lose contact with someone.
The aid community is often accused of doing too much analysis and conducting too many ‘needs assessments’ before taking action. People see us as arriving with our clipboards and gathering information on our pads to see what is going on. Those affected are all too willing to provide us with the information as they reach out to anyone with the hope that their plight will be known and that the help they so urgently require will be supplied.
The same thought of Abdul Illahi that lingered prior to my trip was constantly with me. I desperately wanted to know what had happened to him. Was he alive? Did we manage to intervene at the right time? I went from Mogadishu airport to the Korsan camp where we were greeted with a wave of people – largely women and children barely dressed. To my absolute delight I was eventually informed of some great news – news that sends shivers down my spine as I write about it. Our teams had managed to locate Abdul Illahi and what’s more he was alive!
During my trip I noted that some of the camps I visited were in better condition than others. The camps are set up in a makeshift manner. There are up to 1,000 Somali people arriving daily into these makeshift camps and they are becoming seriously overcrowded.
What people are living in is a kind of ‘tent’ but it is misleading to call them this. They are pitiful, ramshackle temporary shelters, put together with wood, rucksacks and any other material that people can lay their hands on.
I started to approach a tent which was made from a full white sheet instead of scraps of material. I was told this was Abdul Illahi’s tent. As I approached I could feel my heart beating faster and faster. I pulled the withered material of the tent to the side and was filled with a sense of over whelming joy to see Abdul Illahi lying on the floor with his mother towering over him. As she saw me her face lit up and I was greeted by a friendly smile. Although we weren’t able to communicate with each with words, her eyes and smile conveyed to me a million times more than any word possibly could. When I first met her, she had walked 320 kilometres in desperation for some sort of salvation. Her children were dying and they had nowhere to stay. Now at least she has a shelter, but most crucially of all her son is still alive and his condition has improved somewhat.
In situations like this many assessment teams come and go. I was fortunate enough not only to be able to confirm that Islamic Relief had helped save the life of a child but also to come face to face with him once again.
After Abdul Illahi was fed via an IV drip at the hospital, he regained the ability to hold down food. He is moving around more and seems to be on the road to recovery. A rare moment of happiness amid the crisis that has already claimed the lives of thousands of people. As I walked away from the camp both Abdul Illahi and his mother provided me with a renewed sense of hope.
I then visited the Benadir hospital where Abdul Illahi was taken a few weeks back. To my surprise I saw new beds, mosquito nets, as well as doctors from Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, and the Emirates. These willing reinforcements were all from the Muslim and Arab world. It was gratifying to see that the OIC had organised so much in the health sector, an area that Islamic Relief was leading on.
On my first visit the hospital had only two doctors and ten volunteer nurses. There were no IV units, gloves or masks. Now, however, it is starting to resemble a hospital instead of a highly unhygienic place of little hope that could only delay the death of children and not save them. It was heart-warming to see the changes that occurred in just three weeks.
There is still more work that needs to be done. A lot of children in the wards are still sharing beds.
As we walked in the wards it became very apparent that although resources had increased, so had the number of people urgently requiring treatment.
I walked into a ward where I saw a mother and father crying. I looked behind them and two of their four children had died. On the other side of the ward three other children had died. Within 30 minutes of us being there five children had died.
It is estimated that another child is dying every six minutes in Somalia. Thousands of people don’t stand a chance of survival. If they survive the horrific journey through conflict and drought there are only two hospitals in Mogadishu. There are 400,000 children at risk of starving to death, according to the International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.
We have to work unceasingly and intensively to keep these children alive. Many thousands will die if we can’t get assistance to them.
The local staff try to comfort the parents by saying ‘have sabr, have sabr’ – in other words, be patient. But I keep asking myself how much patience are we expecting these parents to have? We have to do all we can to get aid and assistance out to them.
I saw around five or six children sharing the same bed suffering from malnourishment. I asked the doctor if it was dangerous for these children to be in such close proximity. The nurse replied that having the children in hospital also puts them in danger as diseases can spread quite easily.
Islamic Relief built a triage centre after Abdul Illahi was taken into the hospital. He has been suffering with severe diarrhoea and malnourishment, and we wanted to help stop diseases spreading among children as weak as he was. The triage centre is now in its final stages of construction - built in just ten days as a temporary extension to the hospital. I am hoping that this new centre will prevent diseases from spreading.
There is a race against time to see how much we can build up our operation and how many people we can save. We are doing our level best to establish our own mobile team so that we can travel out of Mogadishu and provide treatment to people in Lower Shabel.
Islamic Relief’s strategy is to keep communities close to their homes if we can by providing aid and water in some of the remotest villages so that people can last the next six months until the rains comes. We want people to stay in their respective communities as opposed to putting them into camps. Dadaab refugee camp is about 20years old and has become a permanent fixture, and we are acutely aware that 70% per cent of those who died in the 1992 famine died in camps like this – a grim statistic that we don’t want to see repeated.
Ultimately we want to build resilience in the community so that people can look after themselves and not rely on aid.
I had a mixture of emotions when I saw a huge volume of people flooding into the city to get assistance. It seemed so overwhelming, but we are trying to help as many people as we can. I am very conscious that thousands of people are losing their lives, especially women and children.
Politicians, celebrities, actors and the public need to come together. We are going to require a colossal public effort. The British public have been fantastic and we need their continued generosity so that we don’t let Somalia and its people down.
When I arrived back in the UK I was greeted by the great news that the member states of the OIC had pledged $350 million in new aid for the relief effort. It’s good to see Muslim states mobilising and responding in this way. I believe that in the coming weeks we will see a lot more movement in this area, and I really hope we manage to draw a wide range of donors into increasing their response before it’s too late.
Jehangir Malik, Islamic Relief UK Director
13/08/2011
9am- On our way to Griftu Hospital, Wajir West- I am getting use to travelling now on these sandy, bumpy road tracks. The whole route once again is very dusty and extremely hot. There is very little shelter from the sun. All the tree leaves have dried up hence no tree shadows. It won’t take much time for my body to dehydrate out there.
We pass by a few villages, children smile and wave at our Jeep. They all recognise Islamic Relief Jeeps now (Islamic Relief has been present in Wajir District since 2009).
The mental and physical strength shown by drought sufferers is astonishing. No one is complaining or begging. They all come across as people with strong belief and faith, very patient and composed. I feel foolish to think I know anything about these people’s pain and their struggle. I cannot say to them “I know how you feel”.
Three visitors from Netcare Limited, South Africa accompanied with Islamic Relief local staff also join me in the hospital. I understand they are here as guests of Islamic Relief Kenya office, exploring potential funding projects. This excellent news has made my day!
11am- I am meeting 4 young malnourished children with their mothers in the general ward of Griftu Hospital. Due to the lack of space and very limited medical facilities the ward is shared by all patients; malnourished children elderly patients and pregnant women. I also notice there is no electricity in the ward.
Next I come across Nasteha who is 2 years old and has been in the hospital for the last two weeks. Her parents are sitting beside her on Islamic Relief donated mattress, mother holding on to Nasteha gently. Like most parents around the world, they are both very loving and sweet to Nasteha, kissing and cuddling her, calming her down. Here with all that is happening they are very concerned about their other 5 children left behind in Bollaforrest village with Nasteha’s uncle. Nasteha has an itchy rash. She keeps staring at me with her big, brown eyes.
Nasteha’s father Abdul Rashid wants me to hear his shocking story. He tells me that he lost all his livestock like all his neighbours back in his village, has no present source of income, no food or water due to loss of vegetables and local water pan drying up due to hard-hit droughts,. “What are we going to do now? What would you do if this happened to you? Our life is finished. It’s all over. Over children have no future- our children must have a future.”
Listening to Abdul Rashid I couldn’t help to hold back my tears. He then says to me “please do remember us especially in this holy month of Ramadan in your prayers.”
I meet another child whose mother tells me that he has been saved in time. “Your Islamic Relief people brought by son using their jeep, in time to this hospital and thank you to your team for helping us, providing medicine and also transport, thank you, thank you she repeats twice, second time by whispering low with tears building up in her eyes.
I want to spend more time here and learn more, absorb more pain and agony of these little ‘angels’ and once back to in ‘my world’ would like to share my experience with the rest, family, friends and Islamic Relief supporters. I see this as my duty and responsibility to inform the world, make people understand and realise that ‘we are all on the same boat and it doesn’t matter where the hole is’ we all must help each other, we are all dependent on each other and save each other from these calamities. My translator Abukir tells me “Malik we must go now.”
I am very happy to witness that our local Islamic Relief Wajir team is supplying essential life saving medicine, for patients along with bed mattresses and other medical consumables in this hospital. I am also pleased to hear from the mothers of these malnourished children that our Islamic Relief Wajir staff are providing transportation to and from the hospital for these severely sick children.
4pm- Heading back to Islamic Relief office in Wajir which is approx 50 km from Griftu hospital. I hope this region is blessed with rain soon and ‘our’ world responds even more with great generosity now so these people can fulfil their basic needs; food, water, shelter, healthcare- what we take for granted everyday living in the west.
Habib Malik, Islamic Relief Scotland (Wajir, Northern Kenya)
13/08/2011
After early morning briefings at our regional office in Wajir I am setting off with a translator and driver towards Hadado, a severely drought-hit area approximately 90km west of Wajir.
On the outskirts of Wajir, Abdul, my translator points out the location of ‘Wajir Animal livestock market’ located in Barwako in the actual Wajir town and with sadness he explains me the history and the present state of the cattle market. “This livestock market has been running since the days since I started knowing something. I have known the market since I was 4 years of age. It is for all the animals; camels, goats, sheep, and donkeys. The animals are brought here by individuals, as their sole earning and by traders, who purchase animals from all regions, Mandera, Garissa, even some from Somalia regions. Traders bring livestock here in Wajir market to sell and/or exchange.”
After a long silence, Abdul speaks with broken voice and says “But as you can see now Malik, today there are only about a dozen camels in the market. The main factor that has contributed to fewer animals as we see today in the market is the drought. For those individuals who used to bring animals, they no longer have those animals to bring to the market because most of their animals are dead.”
One of the things that struck me was several huge ant hills along the way. Abdul put me out of misery by a detailed explanation. “Malik the ants use their salaiva during the night, working together to built these ‘giant’ towers. I whisper to myself; there is a very powerful message and a lesson for the mankind.
My next major mental shock came after 45 minutes of driving towards Hadado. I meet 2 boys, Hassan (16 years old) and Salah Abdul Kareem (26) both from Barmil, 40km from our present location. There is no water in their village or surrounding areas. Their main source of water in Barmil is a water pan and this water pan can only collect water when it rains. Because of the failures of the rains this year there is no water in the water pan therefore their only option is to travel all day to Shant Abakh to fetch water for their family and villagers.
Here is their amazing and painful account:
My whole body is numb. This is the holy month of Ramadan and these boys have walked all day in this drought-hit area, desperately in search of water! Water which I use in an unknown quantity every day, from washing my hands, body, clothes and my Vauxhall Vectra, buckets after buckets, Hot and cold.
Its 12pm, as we move closer to Hadado, I notice there is no sign of bushes or trees, in fact not even any sign of living beings apart from the dead animals, bodies in the process of decomposing with a strong wind carrying away the smell. Even the ant hills are no longer to be seen now. Abdul gives me the reason; “Malik the land is so dry that you will not find any ant hill because the ants built their ant hills where there is water. Most geologists claim that where you find crowded ant hills then there is possibility that there is water under that land.”
Finally, we reach our the Islamic relief water project site:
Habib Malik, Islamic Relief Scotland (Wajir, Northern Kenya)
08/08/2011
Today we supported our team on the ground in handing out Ramadan food packs containing essentials such as rice, sugar, cooking oil and dates.
Apart from a lack of food, the absence of basic healthcare is killing so many people - in particular children.
During the famine of 1991 over 75% of the children who died in Somali camps did so due to treatable illnesses or malnutrition. There is great concern that without effective healthcare we could start to see a repeat of these numbers.
Islamic Relief has started operating a number of mobile health clinics which act as a first response – ensuring that the communities get the heath care they need or are referred onwards.
But in spite of our help, I can’t help but feel that we are letting Somalia down because despite our best efforts the lack of resources and expertise is causing pain, suffering and loss of life for millions.
Over our two days in Mogadishu we witnessed so much misery and so many unbearable scenes – yet we know it is likely to get worse before it gets better. In fact, we were spared from the worst of the drought and famine which is in areas that I was unable to visit, such as Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle.
Islamic Relief is working in these areas too, providing food and medical aid to thousands of families and expanding our operation to reach 320,000 hungry people. Even this large number is only a tenth of the people at risk of starvation in this latest famine. Whatever we do is not enough, and more help is always needed.
I left Mogadishu full of sadness and yet also with admiration for those who strive against all the odds with dignity and without complaint; for those who share their small rations of food with families, friends, neighbours and strangers.
In this tsunami of injustice and suffering, it is these glimmers of hope that must inspire us all to struggle alongside those who are vulnerable, poor and weak and remind ourselves that it is those that have little or nothing that are the most generous – and, in this regard, even the wealthiest.
Saleh Saeed, Chief Executive of Islamic Relief Worldwide (Mogadishu, Somalia)
07/08/2011
We are one week into Ramadan, and I am standing in the middle of a camp in Mogadishu that is full to overflowing. There are over a thousand internally displaced people here, crammed into the shell of an abandoned building heaving with desperation.
We hear the expression “lost for words” all the time but this is the the first time I have genuinely experienced what it means. For the full 30 minutes that I was at the camp I was unable to speak. In my 20 years of supporting humanitarian work, I have never experienced this level of injustice and suffering.
It is an injustice because Somalia is ravaged by a conflict that continues to kill thousands of people who are as innocent of the fighting as you or me. It is estimated that over 30,000 children have perished in the famine that grips this place as the worst drought in 60 years and the effects of conflict create a deadly combination.
It is also an injustice because this disaster did not need to reach this scale – especially with the tremendous wealth available in many of Somalia’s neighbouring countries and the Muslim world in general.
And it’s an injustice because we could all see this disaster in the making over the past few years – and yet too little action has been taken to stop its march.
In the camp I met tiny Bilai Hassan, a severely malnourished one-year-old girl who lost her mother to measles just days before. The family were exhausted and weak after trekking from Dinso – a 200km journey that took four days on foot, with very little food and water to sustain them along the way.
Bilai’s father is shell-shocked and numbed by losing his 20-year-old wife and two of his three daughters in quick succession. Now Bilai is the only daughter he has left, cared for mainly by her grandmother. Unable to eat or drink herself, Bilai was on the brink of giving up her last tiny breath.
Her emaciated body was losing the battle to measles, high fever, diarrhoea and acute malnourishment. Her grandmother waited helplessly for Bilai’s last moments. Can there be a greater horror than to have people dying from preventable hunger and illness while the world looks on?
There was also Abdullai, a tiny one-year-old who arrived from an agro-pastoralist village in Kuntawari, Lower Shabelle, where 23 villagers had died since the onset of the drought. This little boy was carried 160km by his father for over five days and was now severely malnourished and dehydrated from the baking sun.
And Abdul Aziz, two years old but only 6.8kg in weight. Too weak even to be vaccinated. He was severely malnourished and suffering from diarrhoea and measles.
The Islamic Relief team are trying their best to keep Bilai, Abdullai and Abdul Aziz alive by getting them the medical attention they so desperately need. May God grant them a full recovery.
During Ramadan many of us choose to fast out of faith and duty – yet here we have a population who have no choice but to starve. And yet, even when a little food arrives those that are not ill still observe Ramadan and wait patiently for the breaking of their long fast.
I went on to visit Benadir Hospital where we met a group of volunteer Islamic Relief doctors and nurses who had flown in from Canada. I thought that we had seen the worst of the suffering in the camps – but I was so wrong.
The building they call a hospital was bursting at the seams with doors and windows that were simply missing or broken. The hospital was clearly struggling with the huge influx of people and it was a relief to see that our volunteer medics were helping.
One of those volunteers, 34-year-old Huda, was born in this very hospital. She left Somalia 22 years ago and returned with IR to help the children whose lives hang by a thread.
Saleh Saeed, Chief Executive of Islamic Relief Worldwide (Mogadishu, Somalia)
04/08/2011
The look in her eyes tells me all I need to know about what had happened. Even before I ask her, I know she has lost a child. It is a familiar look, one that I have seen, as a journalist, in the eyes of mothers in Pakistan, Bosnia, Palestine and now in this IDP camp in Somalia. But never has it been so raw, so real and so striking.
Jameela Ali lost her two-year-old daughter, Habiba in the morning. Habiba died of measles. Jameela had two children, she tells me that her three-year-old son has also died. Robbiy died in the last month, also of measles. Jameela’s eyes are bloodshot, she has been crying. When I ask Jameela how old she is, she replies, “twenty-two” in a low tone. At the age of twenty-two, Jameela has lost both her children, is living in an IDP camp and has left her home in Bakul, having travelled three days to get to Mogadishu.
The IDP camp is crammed; there is hardly any room to move. Part of the camp is in a derelict building, but the lower walls no longer exsist, the pillars are the only thing that is holding it up. It is a wreck, a destroyed building, but for people without a home it offers a tiny form of cover although it is nowhere near enough. Children lie on the floor asleep for hunger is easier to bear if you sleep. The camp has become the fly capital of the world. There are flies everywhere. A child sleeps on the floor, his face covered with flies; I count at least ten.
How many cases am I to document? I move through the camp, coming across case upon case of malnutrition, measles, chest infections. I do not know what to film, there is too much. There is a constant sound of children crying like the humming of an engine. It becomes normal, the odd sharp, high pitched cry reminding you that it is not normal, it is not meant to be normal and it shouldn’t be normal. The cries are not of children protesting because they do not have toys or cannot watch their favourite cartoon on TV; they are cries of hunger, suffering and pain. I can still hear the cries as I write this, like a constant throbbing sound in the back of my head. The children are probably still crying now, their needs unmet.
Abdul Qadir is not crying. He clings to his grandmother Mumin, tucks his head neatly under her breast and looks, intently, at her face. Only a year old and he is malnourished. After the death of his mother he is now being looked after by his grandmother.
“We lost our animals and had to leave our farm, we have no hope,” says Mumin, looking at her malnourished grandchild. His father Ma’ani looks over him. Mumin now has five children to look after, Abdul Qadir is the weakest. His silence is striking amongst the cries of the camp. It is a sorrowful silence, a silence that can only be understood by a mother, a silence that is looking for his mother, a mother who will never return. The family travelled for three days on foot to reach Mogadishu. They receive a small amount of rice a day from the local community. I have not seen an international NGO here yet; we are the first to arrive. We bring with us hope. But I have only brought a camera and my notepad.
The stories of loss do not stop. Abdi Ibrahim Yunus has lost five children to measles in the space of three days. Abdi looks malnourished, he tells me he is forty-eight but he looks like a little boy, no meat on his body, his skinny arms and legs reveal the extent of his weakness. He has one child left, covered in a flowery cloth, he lies on the floor. The cloth is a barrier to the flies, but it will not offer much protection against measles or hunger.
The camp is a maze of tents, little igloo like structures, made out of wooden sticks that bend and are tied at the top. These tents are tiny; you have to crawl to climb inside. They offer no protection from the rain. There is no sanitation here, there are no toilets. The camp stretches across the road and up a hill, the stench of human faeces hits us as we begin to climb up the maze.
Gabo is sitting on the side of the path in front of her tent. Crouching on the floor, her face rests in her hands. She looks at me, I recognise that look in her eyes, the same look that I had seen in Jameela’s eyes earlier.
“My son died, they have taken him to be buried,” she tells me without moving. Gabo had four children, she has two left. Another son died of hunger on the way to Mogadishu.
“I buried him on the way,” she says before solemnly settling back into her mourning state.
There are over one thousand people are in this camp. There will be new arrivals, and there will be more dead children as each day passes. I am set to see the all too familiar look of sorrow in women’s eyes in the days to come as the only visitor in these camps seems to be death.
Assed Baig (Mogadishu, Somalia)
26/07/2011
As soon as you arrive at Mogadishu Airport, you realise you have entered another world. A highly militarised world with check points, people armed to the teeth with AK 47 automatic weapons and not a single complete building without any shrapnel. One can clearly see this was the heart of a battle zone.
Driving through what remains of the country’s capital, there are signs everywhere of a mass exodus of hungry people – large numbers mainly of women and children carrying all they can on their backs to make their way to camps, more in hope of sustenance than in expectation. Some have walked for days or even weeks to escape the deadly combination of drought and conflict in the surrounding countryside. Here for me the word ‘famine’ has come alive in the most heart-breaking way. No longer for me is it a statistic, a dictionary definition used by aid experts to describe the situation. It is the agonising experience of these dignified but desperate people here in front of me, striving to reach the refuge of already overstretched camps that are overflowing with disease and haunted by the smell of death.
Upon arrival in the first camp we visited, we were immediately drawn to Abdul Ilahi, hardly breathing and barely alive. We learned that his mother and his five brothers and sisters had been forced to walk all the way from Bakhool in southern Somalia, an unimaginably tough 320-kilometre trek, to try to escape the drought that has killed all their livestock and left them on the brink of starvation. I was left speechless by hearing their heart-breaking story. What were we witnessing? Was this life or death, or something in between? The poor mother looked straight at me. She had arrived in Mogadishu just two days previously. If she had taken any longer, judging by the condition of her 13-year-old son, she would have found herself mourning the loss of at least one of her children along the way.
To witness a child with just bones for a body, with nothing but skin stretched around those bones, was truly distressing. There were no medical facilities at the camp, so we decided to take Abdul and his mother directly to hospital in our car, along with two other mothers with acutely malnourished children. Upon arrival at the hospital we rushed the children to see the overstretched doctors working flat out in the toughest conditions you can imagine. They confirmed what we already knew just from looking at them – all three children were suffering from acute severe malnutrition. When they measured Abdul’s forearm the circumference was just eight centimetres – only slightly bigger than my thumb. Abdul needed immediate therapeutic feeding if he was going to survive, and yet the Bernadir hospital in which we found ourselves – one of the two main hospitals in Mogadishu – does not have a therapeutic nutritional feeding unit. Abdul’s fate is in the hands of Allah (swt), as his condition was so severe that I felt almost hopeless.
The other two mothers decided they couldn’t stay in the hospital as they had another five children each to attend to. Should they attend to the most ill of their children at the risk of the others? Very real decisions had to be taken by these real people trapped by the most surreal of circumstances.
With the political situation in Somalia not abating, its capital patrolled by people armed to the teeth and a whole generation knowing nothing but weapons, it’s hard to see a light at the end of what is a long, dark, painful tunnel for these people. The international community is grappling with how to get more aid into Somalia, but as it is doing so more than three million people like Abdul could be within days or weeks of death if the help does not come soon enough. I was incredibly moved by the plight of just one boy, and yet I have been reminded several times that the ones that make it to these camps are the ‘fortunate’ compared to those left behind in their villages or dying en route to the camps.
Take a look at the photograph of me with Abdul and ask yourself two questions. Does he look fortunate to you? And what kind of condition must people be in outside the capital, in the remote rural areas that the eyes of the world have yet to see?
God help us to help the people of Somalia. As always our dedicated teams are working round the clock in a race against time to help save lives.
Allah forgive us and give us the strength to help his servants. Ameen.
Wasalam,
Jehangir Malik, Islamic Relief UK Director (Mogadishu, Somalia)
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