Summary:

Nejima, 35, is a mother of six children displaced from Miesso, her village in Oromiya Region due to the intercommunal conflict that broke out along the Oromia-Somali regional boundary.  Nejima and her family are now settling at an IDP camp where they live in a small wooden shelter made from stick and a plastic sheet roofing.  

Nejima’s family used to farm livestock in their home village, but their livelihood was destroyed by a combination of climate-change induced drought and ethnic based conflict. Recently, Nejima’s eight-month-old Nima fall seriously ill, she had diarrhea, recurrent vomiting and persistent cough and was brought to Save the Children run mobile health clinic where she was weighed, and checked and provided treatment for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). During this visit, her mother was also provided advice on simple practices such as handwashing with soap to combat malnutrition.       

Strong quotes: 

“When my daughter Nima got sick, started coughing and became weak, I got worried and felt helpless and decided to bring her here”

“I am very happy and grateful for the lifesaving health care and nutrition advice and services we were provided by the health workers, we appreciate for receiving this critical service here in our community”

Nejima’s story in her own words (quotes):

“My husband and I have six children together. The first three of our children are studying with our relatives in Diredawa town. They are in ninth, seven and fifth grade. Three years ago, my husband and I ran away from the violence, carrying six of our children. We walked two days and nights through the forest and the scorching sun to make it here. We left our home empty handed, only with the clothes on our back”. 

Since the last six days, my youngest daughter Nima, who is now eight-month-old is not feeling well, she has been having constant fever, diarrhea and was vomiting. I do not know what went wrong.  Six days on, Nima’s condition did not show any improvement and it actually got worse; she started losing weight, had stopped taking food and she did not even smile. When I heard that a mobile clinic had been set up here, I immediately brought her for treatment

Today, I brought her to Save the Children’s mobile clinic with the hope that she would get the necessary medical checkups and treatment. The health workers here assessed her condition, told us she has malnutrition, and provided 21 sachets of Plumpy nut (peanut paste) and syrup. I hope the medication and the therapeutic food she was provided would help regain weight and improve her health.

Before we come to this place, we used to live in Mieso area in Oromia Region. We lost all our belongings and our house was burnt because of the conflict. Before the conflict happened, I used to run a small restaurant business, where I prepared and sold local cosines to my customers in the area. We also raise livestock. We used to own three camels, eight head of cattle and more than 200 shoats. Now, we have lost most of them to the drought and conflict. We are only left with less than 20 shots and 3 head of cattle.

We are now in a helpless situation. The shelter we live in is too small and poorly furnished for our family of five. Because of shortage of space, we sometimes sleep out in the open. We also suffer from shortage of food and clean drinking water, and this is mainly difficult for our children to live with.

Our needs are too many and difficult even to list them. This time our priority and urgent need is proper and adequate shelter, sleeping matt, enough food, clean drinking water and kitchen utensils such as cooking pot, plate and bucket. The last time we received the food handout was three month ago (before Ramadan) and the food handouts are not sufficient to cover the whole month. We wish if we could be provided with more food.

I am very happy and grateful for the lifesaving health care and nutrition advice and services we were provided by the health workers, we appreciate for receiving this critical service here in our community.

I want my children to go far with their education and find government employment so they lead a successful life. I do not want to see my children go through what I went through. 

Background / Project information 

On 24 July 2021, the escalation of intercommunal conflict in areas bordering Somali and Afar regions caused the displacement of 4,923 households (approx. 32,000 individuals), the majority of whom are women and children. The IDPs have temporarily settled in five different locations across four woredas of Sitti zone. So far, regional DPPB have been able to reach 1,460 of IDPs through food supply as well as ESNFI and other lifesaving support. Local communities (their clans), relatives or families currently host an estimated 32,000 displaced individuals while those who do not have the option to move to another place have remained in IDP sites in makeshift houses that they built with stick wall and plastic sheet roofing.

In response to the crises, Save the Children steps up treatment of children with malnutrition in the target districts of the Somali Region. Since April this year, Save the Children through its integrated Multi-Sectoral lifesaving emergency response to children and their family’s project has provided WASH, health and nutrition, Education and child protection assistance to people affected by intercommunal conflict in Sitti zone of the Somali Region, Ethiopia.  

The emergency nutrition programme funded by EHF through UN-OCHA started in April 2022 Afdem and Miesso districts. Since April 2022, 1046 children were screened for malnutrition out of which 167 children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) received treatment at the OTP sites run by the mobile health team while 13 children with medical complications were referred to the Stabilization Centre that Save the Children supported and strengthened. In addition, 154 children were provided with different vaccine and 187 women received TT vaccination. On the other hand, 1084 children under five years of age and 1387 adults provided medical consultation and treatment by the mobile health team.