SOS Mogadishu: Situation report

SOS Children’s Villages Somalia
Situation report by Ahmed Ibrahim, National Director of SOS Children's Villages Somalia
26th June 2009

Since the beginning of May this year there has been much fighting and violence in many parts of Mogadishu between the government forces and insurgents. More than 300 people, including one legislator, the Mogadishu Police chief and hundreds more, were wounded during the fighting. According to the UNHCR, the total number of displaced people from Mogadishu since May 7th is nearly 170,000. Many more people are still fleeing from the capital by buses, vans, donkeys or even by foot, carrying children and small household items on their back. These new IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) are settling in camps in the Afgoye corridor, about 20kms to south of Mogadishu, where more than 300,000 people have taken refugee in the past two years. The living conditions in the camps are deteriorating day by day as many more new-comers are arriving. Families are sheltering in tiny huts made from plastic bags and sticks and when the rains come, all these huts will be washed away.

The fighting and violence is not only limited in Mogadishu but has spread nearby regions. On 17th May, an insurgent group took control of Jowahar town, 90 Kms to the north of Mogadishu. According to UNICEF, militiamen took over their compound in Jowhar where massive looting and destruction of life-saving humanitarian supplies and equipment has taken place. This has enormously affected the organization’s ability to deliver services to the most vulnerable children and women. In other incident, on the 18th of June, a suicide bomber killed Somalia’s Security Minister and at least 30 other people while more than 40 people were wounded in Baladweyn town, 250 kms to north of Mogadishu. This was the deadliest suicide bomb attack in the country. The insurgent group known as Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the blast and vowed that more attacks would be carried out.Targeting humanitarian workers as well as media group continues and seems to be increasing in Mogadishu over the last four weeks.

As insurgents groups stepped up attacks in the last four weeks to try to oust President Sharif and his government, on June 20th, Somalia’s parliament speaker asked neighboring countries to send troops to help the government within 24 hours. Subsequently, the President declared a state of emergency in a bid to contain a deadly six week old insurgent offensive. However, insurgent groups vowed to fight any foreign troops that come to the aid of the government. African Union already has 4,300 peacekeepers in Mogadishu and they are under constant attack by the insurgents that want to dislodge the government.

SOS Children’s Village Mogadishu

The Children's Village is currently taking care of 64 children (37 boys and 27 girls). SOS is not admitting new children at the moment due to security uncertainty. The SOS families moved back to the village on 21st February 2009 after being away for more than a year. The families were moved back because the security situation improved around the project area. The SOS mothers and children were thrilled to be back in their SOS homes after being away for so long. It was a nice reunion for the children and mothers as well because some families had not seen each other since they moved out of the Village. During that time, the families lived in four different parts of the city and their movement was restricted due to the prevailing security situation.

At the moment, the fighting and violence taking place in many parts of the Capital have not directly affected the Village. But many people are running from their homes and coming to project area. According to UNHCR about 8,900 displaced people have come to this district and many more people are coming every day.However, there is no safety guarantee at all in Mogadishu and the situation may turn for the worst at any time. Thus, the Village team lead by the Village Director are closely monitoring the situation hour by hour and have already taken same contingency plans in case the situation gets out of hand.

SOS Schools Mogadishu

The school was reopened on 7th March 2009 after relocation and closure. It is now running normally with 352 pupils in the primary school and 118 pupils in the secondary school. All the school going children of the Village are also back to school and are happy that they can attend classes without going outside the Village. Normal studies resumed as usual. The violence and fighting in many parts of Mogadishu has affected teachers as well as students. During the past deadly-six week fighting, one student was killed the day before an examination. And still, the following morning, all the students attended the examination; the only absence was that of the victim. “They are hungry to learn, very hungry. And they're willing to learn. The way they are willing to listen to you makes it hard to imagine that these children live in a war zone”, said Musa Dugow, the school principal. In another horrible incident, the wife of the secondary school Head teacher Mr. Abukar Ahmed was hit by a stray bullet on the head. She was rushed to the hospital where the following day she passed away. Despite all the difficulties in operational context, teachers and students always come to school and normal class sessions take place six days a week.

SOS Nursery

The Nursery has been closed since end of 2007 due to the frequent shelling around our project area. Activities were affected by the recurring fighting in Mogadishu. In order to protect the children from the fighting (stray bullets, etc), both the parents of SOS as well as the others decided not to send their children to the Nursery and therefore the it was closed. It is now undergoing some restructuring. The On 16th June 2009, Mrs. Kaltun Mustaf Haji, the Nursery principal, was abducted by two armed men as she was heading to her home. She was then released on Saturday 20th in the evening. In this regard the motive behind the abduction of Kaltun was money and had nothing to do with the organisation and the work she is doing for SOS Children's Villages. The regularity of kidnappings in Mogadishu is a sign of continuing chaos in the war-ravaged country. The kidnappings are a blot on the country's image abroad and increase the suffering of a population afflicted by nearly two decades of lawlessness. Financial gain is the motive behind almost all cases of kidnapping. Clan elders are often called into action to try to get a hostage released.

SOS Medical Centers

The SOS hospital continued to operate throughout most of fighting period but many people found it difficult to access the services because of army road blocks. Now that the army troops are gone the hospital is once again operating at full capacity.The SOS medical centre continues its normal routine, in spite of it suffering from the repercussions of persisting insecurity caused by armed clashes between warring groups; one of the groups Al- Shabaab Al-Mujahidin are mainly in control of our project area, do not interfere the operations and do not disturb the staff members.

The worrying trend of insecurity has caused physical absence of international staff from our Mogadishu projects for a period of almost two years. In their absence, the local medical staff led by Dr. Abdullahi Hussein, a Somali Diaspora who came back from Britain are doing an extraordinary job in maintaining and carrying our medical services needed by the most vulnerable women and children. Dr. Asha Omar, also a Somali Diaspora from Italy recently joined the team and she was employed as Obstetrician/gynecologist on 25th of May.

Despite the violence, insecurity and attacks on aid workers, The SOS Medical facility remains a unique centre in Mogadishu that offers care to mothers and children. As one of the few health facilities yet operational in Mogadishu, it offers a number of comprehensive outpatient and inpatient services, Day care clinic and MCH services to the community. Since January, about 64,000 patients have been offered medical services. This total includes 11,000 women who were helped medically; while more than 1,500 deliveries were recorded, including 205 caesarian sections. There is no doubt that without these surgical interventions many babies and their mothers would not have survived.More than 20,000 children have been offered medical treatments, among them include about 2,100 children vaccinated against preventable diseases while more than more than 800 severely malnourished have been treated admitted in the Supplementary feeding Programme.