Families across southern Somalia’s Bay and neighboring regions have depleted their survival resources following successive dry seasons, with thousands compelled to leave rural villages and relocate to displacement camps, particularly near Baidoa.

Ibrahim Daud Omar now resides in Gawaan displacement camp on the outskirts of Baidoa. He and his eight-family members joined the camp in December after losing all possessions to the drought.

“We are enduring extremely harsh conditions since our arrival. Sometimes the family receives food once, offered out of compassion by people who see our condition or relatives we contact. Nothing else is coming in. No organization has assisted us, and there is no life here. I need food for my children, but I cannot obtain it,” Ibrahim stated.

Their final food supplies of sorghum and beans exhausted several months ago. Ibrahim, 60, expresses little hope of improving his family’s circumstances as he cannot find work. His wife is sick and his children are too young to generate income.

Gawaan camp lacks a borehole, compelling families to depend on water transported from private wells four kilometers away. For Ibrahim, this option is unaffordable as he cannot pay 5,000 Somali shillings for 20 liters of water. They survive on three to five liters begged daily from neighbors.

“The pressures on us are hunger and thirst. We have no water to use. Life depends on water and food, yet we have neither. There is nothing for children to drink, nothing to cook with, nothing to wash with. We are suffering immensely.”

Ibrahim reports they were displaced from Oflow village in Dinsor district in early December, after their final remaining goat out of 30 died.

Income from farming, previously the foundation of his livelihood, had also diminished with the drought. In September, he planted grains and vegetables on his four-hectare farm, but all crops failed due to insufficient rain.

He has accumulated debts of $200 used to purchase seeds, labor, and for land preparation. Displacement has also subjected his children to difficult living conditions:

“When we lived in our village, we had a proper house. Now we sleep outside because we have no shelter. At night, the cold becomes severe. We huddle together. During the day, there is nowhere to escape the heat.”

The family walked for two weeks to reach Baidoa after failing to find transportation. Ibrahim is concerned about three children suffering from high fever, but the camp has no health facility and he cannot afford private medical care.

Farhiyo Mohamed Mahmoud, who has farmed for twenty years, was also displaced for the first time last October. She and her ten children now live in a temporary shelter made of cloth and sticks in a camp near Baidoa.

She walks daily into nearby bushland to gather firewood to sell in town, hoping to earn enough for a single meal. She earns at most $1.5 daily, which barely helps.

“Life has become extremely difficult. Our farms failed due to drought, and we came to Baidoa seeking survival. Hunger torments us day and night. Children go hungry for 12 hours. The situation is very dire,” she told a local reporter.

Farhiyo has an eight-month-old baby for whom she cannot buy milk. She says the baby cries throughout the night from hunger.

She fled alone after leaving her husband in Abay-dhiin, approximately 60 kilometers away, to care for their seven cows that could not travel the long distance with them. She arrived with nothing, abandoning her home and belongings.

Debt burdens her as well: “I owe about four million Somali shillings borrowed for farming. The crops failed, and I could not repay anything. Life and debt are overwhelming me.”

The director of the South West State’s Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management ministry, Hussein Noor Aden, stated that the drought has destroyed the region’s primary livelihood systems and left more than 621,000 people across the state in precarious living conditions:

“The immediate challenges people face are hunger, water scarcity, lack of rainfall, malnutrition, and loss of crops. Out of the 18 districts in South West State, 10 are the most severely affected.”

He mentioned that limited water trucking and food distribution have commenced, but funding limitations and increasing displacement mean assistance falls far short of requirements.

Somalia’s disaster management agency, SODM, also cautioned that failed Deyr rains and poor Gu seasons have left much of the country facing severe humanitarian conditions.

As families continue to arrive in camps around Baidoa, food, water, shelter, and health services are urgently needed to prevent the situation from worsening further.