Crying to get out of limbo
The admirable tenacity of the internally displaced
For close to two years now, 2,700 families have been stuck in a government compound in Deder woreda, East Hararghe Zone of Oromia Region, as they have no where else to go.
6,800 children, women and men have made a home in an abandoned warehouse, an underutilized hall and an incomplete two-floored building. A myriad of makeshift structures made of sticks and plastic paper held together with string, propped against walls or fastened to trees, dot the compound. Every conceivable space here is occupied.
About 300 people sleep in the open hall that was once used to hold large gatherings. At night, families string up blankets, bedsheets or tarpaulins to create their own private space.
Across the compound, there is an old abandoned warehouse. About 100 people live inside, separated by either iron sheets or curtains cut out of plastic paper, old bedsheets or blankets.
And then there is the incomplete two-floored building, where among others, a young couple has taken refuge, occupying a corner measuring about 3 by 2 metres.
25-year-old Jeena and 26-year-old Abdallah Mohammed are not actually young lovers starting life together, as I first assumed. They were both separated from their partners while fleeing inter-communal conflict in Jigjiga.
Neither knows if their partner is alive or dead. Their pain brought them together and they now live as husband and wife.
With the help of international donors and the International Organization for Migration, the Government has put up temporary shelter made of corrugated iron sheets and a cemented floor, the most decent of housing here. The World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing food every month and it is the only source of nutrition for the families here.
The day life stood still
But even these partitioned rooms are not ideal for families like that of Maria Musa Ahmed.
“I live here with my husband and our five children,” she says, sitting on one of the two mattress in the room, one a standard size and one slightly larger. “I had a thriving business selling clothes in Jigjiga. I can say that we were well off. But all that is gone now. We left everything to save our lives and now we are living on food rations. We are surviving on aid from UN and NGOs. We have nothing,” she adds.
Maria vividly relives the events in Jigjiga the day she and her family had to flee. She waves any attempts to have her pause so the interpreter can relay. She wants to get it all off her chest. Her face with each second becoming raw with emotion, she finally grabs her headscarf and wipes the corner of her eye.
For a moment, she has a blank look. It is a look that you see in almost all the internally displaced men and women living in Deder.
A look of a people who had spent years building their lives only for their hard work to come crumbling down in the ugly face of inter-communal conflict.
Most families here salvaged nothing but their lives. Since then, life has stood still.
We want to move on
The compound in Deder is not a place where one wants to linger for two hours, let alone two years.
Everyone here wants to move on. They want to rebuild. They want to work to earn a living. They do not want to live on relief. They have dreams of raising children. Rebuilding their lives.
But they lack the means to.
“The locals [host population] don’t want us here,” says Maria. “They say we are taking their land.”
The local population lives off farming. There is not enough arable land to go around for everyone. The seasons have become more and more unpredictable, with erratic rains and long dry spells wiping out crops every now and then.
The local youth in the community are competing for the same menial jobs available in the villages.
“A few IDPs [internally displaced persons] are able to get some work in the community — tilling the land or in construction sites, but the community here is also poor,” says Ahmed Mohammed Ismael, the officer in-charge of relief from the Disaster Risk Management Office. “Per day, the pay is about 200 birr (almost US$7), which is very low.”
“If there is a delay in food distribution, I don’t stay in Deder. I fear for my safety,” says Ahmed. “The IDPs come demanding for answers and sometimes they can become violent.”
Lend us a hand
Amidst all this gloom, 30-year-old Ifsa Yusuf is refreshingly positive. He is living here with his wife Ayan Ahmed Nur Abdi and their three-year old baby.
“I was a trader in Wachile [Somali Region],” he explains. “I don’t think about the property I lost. I’m grateful that I am alive and I have the strength to work hard and earn more.”
Ifsa lost a close relative after he was injured during the conflict in Wachile and succumbed to the wounds later. Almost everyone here is happy they got out alive, and they want to get means to move on.
“All I need is a loan from the Government or any other source so that I can restart my business. I am a hardworking person. I will repay the loan,” says Ifsa. “If I don’t get any support, I don’t know how I will secure a good future for my son.”
Continued assistance
Until May 2019, WFP had consistently provided food and cash assistance to the IDPs. A shortage of funds led to a delay in the May distributions, causing uncertainty and unrest amongst them.
In East and West Hararghe zones, WFP has been reaching almost 400,000 IDPs and returnees with food rations comprising cereals, pulses and vegetable oil, or a combination of cash and food.
Across the country, WFP is assisting over 1 million IDPs and returnees in Somali, Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz and Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region. Fortified foods have been provided to over 111,000 children and pregnant and breastfeeding women through targeted supplementary feeding.
WFP is grateful for the donor support that has sustained this critical assistance, part of WFP’s contribution to Ethiopia’s Humanitarian Response Plan. However, this lifesaving assistance is facing severe funding shortfalls. WFP Ethiopia’s nutrition activity is currently facing a six-month shortfall (July to December) of US$49 million while the relief activity faces a gap of US$79 million.
Click here to learn more about WFP’s work in Ethiopia
