Funds Urgently Needed as IOM Begins Relocating Somali Drought Victims from Dadaab Camp to New Site
As IOM began an operation on Thursday 18 August to relocate Somali
drought victims currently living in deplorable conditions on the
outskirts of the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, the
Organization is again appealing to donors to help fund its Horn of
Africa response.
A welcome and first donation from the US State Department's
Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration of USD 1.5 million
will help to fund some of IOM's work to transport, relocate and
reunify displaced Somalis who have fled the drought and famine in
their country in search of help in Kenya and Ethiopia.
However, the Organization urgently needs additional responses to
its appeal for USD 26.6 million.
On Thursday and in support of UNHCR, IOM relocated the first 259
of 30,000 Somalis from the outskirts of Dadaab to an extension of
another site, Ifo.
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IOM began working on preparing the site a few weeks ago and has
so far pitched more than 1,500 tents out of 7,500 planned and has
demarcated 120 plots. Work on completing the site is expected to
take several weeks.
The relocation of the Somali drought victims to the new site
will enable aid agencies to better assist them with essential
services.
Similarly in Ethiopia, IOM has relocated nearly 10,600 people
from a transit centre at Dollo Ado, where about 300 people are
arriving on a daily basis, to a new camp at Halewiyn. The
Organization, which has temporarily halted this movement, will
resume the transportation of Somalis to the camp when additional
shelter and other essential facilities are established.
IOM staff on the ground say that congestion at Dollo Ado has
been reduced because of the transportation assistance with a
measles outbreak in camps having given added urgency to
efforts.
"Transporting people out of severely over-crowded camps and
centres, which are dangerous for the health and well-being of all
those in them, and taking them to areas where they have proper
access to life-saving assistance, is as essential an aspect of the
humanitarian response as ensuring that people have shelter, food,
water and sanitation," says Jeff Labovitz, IOM's Special
Coordinator for the Horn of Africa crisis and currently in
Ethiopia. "For those people IOM is helping, particularly those too
weak to move, this is clearly evident."
IOM's transport assistance is also reunifying families divided
by the drought and the journey to Kenya and Ethiopia.
One family assisted by IOM in Kenya have been divided for five
months.
When Mohammed Hassan left Somalia months ago because of the
drought, in search of a better place for his family, his pregnant
wife Dego thought she and their four children would never see him
again.
Mohammed, 35, eventually crossed the border and reached Hagadera
on the outskirts of Dadaab and with the support of the IOM
reunification team, waited every day, hoping that his family would
arrive.
Dego and the children finally made it last weekend, along with
300 other Somalis who had managed the tough journey. On
seeing their father approach from the gate at the camp's transit
centre, the children walked feebly towards him, calling his
name.
Their mother, due to give birth next month and holding her
one-and-a-half year old child, was too weak to move, so simply sat
and waited for him to reach her.
"I will sleep soundly tonight," said Mohammed. "I have never
slept well, imagining that my children would fall prey to the harsh
journey."
Media, please contact:
In Kenya,
Lillian Matama
IOM Nairobi
Tel: + 254713601043
E-mail:
"mailto:lmatama@iom.int">lmatama@iom.int
or
John McCue
IOM Dadaab
Tel: + 254722202173
E-mail:
"mailto:jmccue@iom.int">jmccue@iom.int
In Ethiopia,
Demissew Buziwork
Tel: + 251 11 661 11 71
E-mail:
"mailto:bdemissew@iom.int">bdemissew@iom.int
In Geneva,
Jemini Pandya
Tel: + 41 22 717 9486/+ 41 79 217 3374
E-mail:
"mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int
or
Jumbe Omari Jumbe
Tel: + 41 22 717 9405/+ 41 79 812 7734
Email:
"mailto:jjumbe@iom.int">jjumbe@iom.int