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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6415216/Rapists-hunger-and-hyenas-attack-Somalias-displaced-women.html

SOMALIA - DISPLACED WOMEN - POVERTY, HUNGER,  ILLNESS, WAR, RAPE,

MANY WIDOWS, GRIM REFUGEE CAMPS, STRUGGLES TO SURVIVE

By Helen Vesperini

23 October 2009

A woman stands in front of her makeshift shelter at a refugee camp in Galkayo, north-eastern Somalia Photo: AFP

But it is still better than the horrors they fled: civil war battles in Mogadishu, drought in neighbouring Ethiopia, inter-clan warfare and what they say was state-sponsored ethnic persecution and killings.

Many have "lost" their husbands. Some men abandoned their families, others tried to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen and have not been heard from since. Some are still part of the family but are away, eking out a living herding livestock.

The wastelands on the edge of Galkayo, a large swathe of low thorn scrub where millions of plastic bags flutter in the breeze, are home to several camps.

In a camp called Mustaqbal, which translates as "future", Halima, a divorcee of 35, recounted from behind her veil how she fled shelling in Mogadishu, 430 miles to the south, with her five children.

"We are the breadwinners for our families. We have no husbands and our daily earnings are not enough to survive on," she said, gesticulating with henna-patterned hands.

Halima has what is known locally as a "shoulder shop": she hawks goods, in this case clothing, from door to door.

The huts consist of acacia branches twisted into a dome shape and covered with ragged cloths and rice sacks. A typical hut for a family is between two and four square metres.

Without men the women are constantly at risk of attack. They have to pay for guards at night.

"Not a week goes by when we don't have a rape case," said Hawa Adan Mohamed, a women's rights activist who runs vocational training schemes and manufacturing projects in Galkayo.

"If you go to the police there's no follow-up. They say that because of the clan issue they cannot touch the perpetrator."

"Here the strongest man takes all," said a United Nations official.

Just down the road in Bulo Baaley camp the smell is overbearing. After dark, adults and children alike defecate into plastic potties which stand in front of the huts.

The shacks here are bigger but the landowner charges rent.

"If you can't pay, he takes one of the children. He keeps the child until he gets paid," explained Kasman Katal, a mother of three who looks older than her 20 years.

"My husband left for Yemen. We've had no news since. We don't know if he survived," she said, flapping at the flies swarming her baby's face.

She and her neighbour Marianne Abdi, a pretty girl of 15 who is already divorced with a child, make money by removing garbage from houses in Galkayo and dumping it at the edge of town.

Tawakal camp, home to around 1,700 families, has a school and latrines. It is further away from any formal settlement so work is harder to come by. But there is no rent to pay and school is free.

Hawa, sat on a piece of sacking in front of her hut, looks close to giving up on life. Her aged mother lies next to her, sick with malaria while her adolescent daughter struggles to do the washing up in a shallow pan of water.

"We get food on credit, then we pay our debts when relatives send us something," she said staring at the ground.

"Galkayo is surrounded by conflict-affected displaced from south and central Somalia and also by drought-affected displaced," said Talil Musa Mohamed, a traditional leader from South Galkayo.

Humanitarian workers say there are 220,000 displaced people in north and south Galkayo.

Galkayo, which straddles the "border" between the north-eastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland and Somalia proper, is not the only area affected.

As African heads of state hold a special summit in Kampala on the continent's refugee and displacement problem, Somalia is one of the worst crises.

Civilians fleeing conflict have turned northern Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp into the world's largest. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are around 1.5 million displaced people in Somalia, close to a sixth of the total population.

Huge numbers are concentrated in the north, in Puntland or Somaliland, a breakaway republic.

Grinding poverty, coupled with Somalia's clan system, means that the displaced are not always welcome outside their native region.

Those fleeing the south and centre are fair game for armed gangs.

"In Mogadishu we were under continual artillery fire; we saw people dying and being eaten by cats and dogs. Then on the way here we were robbed, we were raped and we lost children when they got sick and died," said 39-year-old Fatuma Ahmed.

She spoke on behalf of about 100 women who fled the south between May and August and who took refuge in Hargeysa, Somaliland, seen as the country's safest city.

The aggressors are youths in civilian clothes. Either no-one knows which militia they belong to, or no-one wants to say. They attack trucks at night while passengers sleep on board.

Another group with little future are people of Somali origin who settled in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia and who fled what they described as a drought exacerbated by inter-clan warfare.

UNHCR and Relief International, a US aid group, have introduced a livestock programme in Tawakal, Bulo Baaley and three other camps. In an attempt to move away from dependence on food aid, goats or chickens are distributed to needy families.

In Tawakal the increase in the goat population has in turn attracted hyenas.

Habiba Barre, 30, lives in a hovel made of flattened powdered milk cans. She showed off a hole in the side of the hut that has been filled with earth. A hyena tried to get in to carry away her three goats.

Barre says she fled Ethiopia after the government got tough on ethnic Somalis, accusing them of hosting rebels. She has kept her baby with her, but six older children are staying with relatives. She too survives on occasional remittances. But she has high hopes for her goats and is looking forward to being able to sell the milk.

"Here at least we are only scared of hyenas, not of being killed," she said. ________________________________________________________________________

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2281395.htm

Somalia - Muslim Insurgents Impose Restrictions Against

Women Working & Close Women's Organizatons

02 November 2009

Source: Reuters 

By Sahra Abdi Ahmed

NAIROBI, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents closed three grassroots women's organisations in the rebel-held town of Balad Hawa on Monday to stop women from going to work, a rebel leader said.

The group wants to impose its own version of Islamic law on areas it controls, and Washington says it is al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of African nation.

"We have taken this step after we recognised that women need to stay in their homes and take care of their children ... Islam does not allow women to go to offices," Maalim Daaud Mohmed, the chairman of Balad Hawa, told Reuters by telephone.

Balad Hawa is located on the Somali border with Kenya, near the Kenyan town of Mandera.

The organisations closed by al Shabaab are the Halgan Businesswomen's Organisation, the Sed Huro Human Rights Organisation and Farhan Woman for Peace, he said.

The insurgents have banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing and watching soccer.

Courts have ordered executions, floggings and amputations in recent months, mostly in the southern Kismayu region and rebel-held districts of the capital.

The rebel leader said they would also close five non-governmental organisations in the region. He did not name them.

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