What life is like for women across Somalia right now, where around 3 million people have been internally displaced because of climate crisis induced drought – leaving many on the brink of famine.
Imagine there’s no food or water left wherever you live - your children are starving and the only way to save them is to drag them on a 80-mile hike to secure humanitarian aid.
You’ve seen other women making the same gruelling journey on their own with a dozen children as their husbands walked off and left them despite taking them as child brides and putting many babies in their bellies - and they haven’t been so lucky. I’ve been here since Monday, listening to stories of these women as they try to piece their lives back together at Internally Displaced People’s camps with the help of aid organisations like Trocaire.
As I write this column from Mogadishu, the fact we still haven’t stopped doing what has caused their pain and suffering in the first place, sticks in my guts. But when you’re in a place like this - it makes you realise just how insignificant having the best new trainers, dress, car, phone and house is.They live in thrown up shacks with dirt floors, drink dirty water from the river, have no sanitation provisions worth talking about and aren’t even guaranteed a meal a day to help them stay alive.
It gathered in unsightly piles across open land, hung from trees and got stuck in thorn hedges which became more plastic than plant. They are used to hunting animals, buying grains from reusable sacks and getting water from the river when there is some.
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