Camps in east Ethiopia struggle to cope with influx of Somali refugees

DOLLO ADO, Ethiopia, August 4 (UNHCR) - Deep in the Ogaden desert - one of the most remote regions in Africa - a sprawling city of tents is emerging. More than 118,000 Somali refugees reside in the three camps run by UNHCR and the government in eastern Ethiopia's Dollo Ado district.

But the camps are struggling to cope with the continuing influx and the UN refugee agency is urgently constructing a fourth camp at Heloweyn to provide shelter for up to 40,000 people. Together with its partners, Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children, UNHCR will soon begin to transfer around 15,000 refugees to Heloweyn, some of whom have been waiting for up to one month in the transit centre at Dollo Ado.

About 1,000 kilometres from the capital, Addis Ababa, Dollo Ado lies close to the borders with troubled Somalia and Kenya, where some 400,000 Somalis have sought shelter in the crowded camps of Dadaab.

The refugees in Dollo Ado are being sheltered in three camps - Kobe, Malkadida and Bokolmanyo. Each was designed to accommodate 20,000 people, but the total in each camp is now almost double that.

The new arrivals, almost all of them women and children, are only too willing to tell of the appalling conditions that compelled them to flee and seek safety and succour far from their homes. Years of war have long forced people to flee Somalia, but this year a deadly drought has multiplied the exodus rate.

Barey, a heavily pregnant 31-year-old from the Bay region of southern Somalia, arrived here earlier this week with her five children. They arrived by truck, but did not have enough to pay for Barey's husband and he stayed behind to care for his blind father.

"For the past three years there has been no rain and our harvest has failed again," she explained. "In my village I owned 15 cattle and 100 goats. They all died because there was nothing for them to eat [or drink]."

Person after person staggering into Dollo Ado, many of them after walking for weeks, has a similar story of loss and suffering to tell. Without their livestock and water sources, rural folk from Somalia simply can't survive.

Conditions around Dollo Aldo give an idea of what the Somalis have had to cope with. Vegetation is sparse and sand blasts through the arid terrain. In these conditions, UNHCR teams are delivering shelter, food, water and health services to the displaced. Further aid is on its way, including tents, medical supplies and equipment to drill water wells.

Meanwhile, UNHCR is concerned about fresh violence between government forces and the opposition Al-Shabaab militia, which is also triggering flight in south and central Somalia.

The continuing insecurity makes the journey out of the country more perilous. Forced to move at night through bush areas, some refugees are travelling hundreds of extra kilometres in order to escape notice. Men and teenage boys are at risk of recruitment.

For now, Barey is relieved to have reached safety: "I came to Ethiopia hoping for a better life for my children. But if the rains come and peace returns to Somalia, I want to go back to my country."

By Laura Padoan in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia