Somali refugees who fled drought, extremism face possible ration cuts

MELKADIDA CAMP, Ethiopia — Some walked for days to escape the threat of Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group and the desperation of drought. But the problems for more than 200,000 Somali refugees are far from over.

Now huddled in five sprawling camps in Ethiopia, the refugees face ration cuts in the coming months unless more international support arrives. Their plight is often overlooked.

“The projection we have is that our already reduced aid handout for these Somali refugees is sustainable only up to March 2018,” Edward Moyo with the World Food Program told The Associated Press during a visit to one of the camps. “How are we going to explain to a pregnant mother who has a number of other children that we are going to cut her ration beyond what she’s already going through?”

In nutrition centers across the camp that is home to nearly 40,000 refugees, health workers said they are seeing a growing number of Somali children with malnutrition. And yet the number of new arrivals from Somalia continues to grow, at a rate of as high as 1,000 a day.

The parched landscape, dotted with refugee shelters made of bamboo and corrugated metal, leaves no possibility for the refugees to attempt feeding themselves by other means.

WFP is appealing for $27 million to support 650,000 refugees from across the region who now live in Ethiopia camps.

Aid groups have said Somalia is experiencing its worst drought in seven years, and many of the refugees are arriving in Ethiopia from the Bay, Gedo and Middle Juba regions. It is an echo of Somalia’s devastating famine in 2011 that claimed the lives of 250,000 and sent many more into neighboring countries.