Maryan Dahir and her four children are sheltering under their makeshift home, an igloo shaped hut on the outskirts of the Somali capital Mogadishu, from the torrential rain that has been pouring down on them as their shelter, made of few sticks and ragged clothes, cannot protect them from the rain.
"The rain of the past two days has been showering over me and my children," says Maryan as she complained of the lack of plastic sheets for her hut. "We have lived like this since last year but we did not get anything from the aid agencies."
Maryan and her family are one of thousands of families living in camps for the internally displaced peoples (IDP) who fled from the violence in Mogadishu.
She said she had been living on occasional handouts from local and international NGOs.
The IDPs live in makeshift shelters in and around Mogadishu. Most of the IDP camps are located 18 km west of the capital along the road linking Mogadishu to Afgooye, a small town 30 km west of the capital.
Residents of the restive coastal city fled their homes to the camps as clashes between Ethiopian troops backed-Somali government forces and the Insurgents escalated uprooting nearly half a million people from their homes since early 2007,according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Many local and international aid agencies have been distributing limited food, water, medicine and blankets to those most in need. Many IDPS, however, have started longing for their homes in the capital despite the insecurity there because the people like Maryan and her family have to endure the harsh living conditions at the camps.
"We have to cram all our family of seven in this tiny hut of about three by three (meters) and we have to make do with one meala day," Yusuf Ali at Daynile IDP camps west of Mogadishu, told Xinhua. "The heavy rains of the past two days caused the death of two children and many of us spent their night fighting floods covering our huts from the rains."
Nearly seven people including four children died Sunday and almost ten others were wounded after heavy rains caused flash floods sweeping away IDP shelters in and around the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The raining season has started in the war-torn Horn of African nation where hundreds of thousands of displaced people live in shelters which cannot protect them from the rains.
"Most of the huts of the people in this camp and others were hastily constructed by urban people, who, unlike the rural people, knew nothing about hut construction," says Elder Mohamoud Karshe at Teeda Camps in Daynile District west of Mogadishu. "The huts are made of sticks and old clothes which cannot shelter people from either sun or rain."
Some of the lucky ones have received plastic sheets distributed by the UNHCR last year but most of the people say that they were unable to get some to cover their shelters to protect them from the rains that have just began.
"We fled from insecurity in the city and now you see my children who are malnourished may die of the cold and the rains because I have nothing to help protect them," lamented a tearful Maryan as she puts her last dry cloth on top of their tiny hut.
Source: Xinhua
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