Puntland, Somalia – Puntland is on the edge of famine, according to aid agencies working in this semi-autonomous state in Somalia’s arid north.
Between 20,000 and 27,000 nomadic pastoralists have been forced to travel hundreds of miles to reach coastal regions of Puntland where there was a flash of rain in December last year. There has been no rain since.
The displacement has forced families to separate, leaving women, children and the elderly to find help in makeshift displacement camps on the edges of towns where water-borne diseases are spreading and living conditions are dire.
The Horn of Africa is in the midst of the harshest and most prolonged drought in decades. Swaths of Somalia, already one of the world’s most fragile territories, are facing famine just six years after one last ravaged the country, killing 260,000 people.
The diminishing stream at Dhudo, Bandar Bayla district in eastern Puntland. It is currently the only running water source within a 75km radius. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Pastoralists in Dhudo village, Bandar Bayla, bring their camels from up to 80km away to drink. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
People have travelled many hundreds of kilometres to bring their surviving herds to areas of Somalia where there is still pasture and a water source. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
The rains that fed Bandar Bayla district in December have not returned and the pasture that flourished briefly has all but dried up, leaving pastoralists desperate and many miles from their home regions. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Ahmed Osman and his son Mohamed, who come from the Nugaal region of Puntland, seek medical care for Mohamed in Dhudo, where a small clinic is serving pastoralist families affected by malnutrition. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Small mobile clinics run by Puntland’s Ministry of Health and some supported by NGOs provide limited services and medication to the people of the region. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Nomads bring their camels to a point in Bandar Bayla where local water trucks sell fresh water brought into the desert from Dhudo. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Abdirizak Farah collects water from a pool in the rivulet at Dhudo village in Bandar Bayla district. He says he brought his goats from Nugaal region, some 200km away, chasing pasture nearer to the coast. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Shaxade displacement site in central Puntland mostly shelters women and children. The men have left along with their livestock in search of greener pasture. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Abdullahi Farah is sheltering at Shaxade displacement site after leaving her home in southern Puntland when most of her animals died and her husband was forced to move the remaining herds to the coast. She built her own shelter and brought her youngest children with her. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Makeshift displacement sites are growing on the fringes of towns in Puntland, where pastoralists are forced to migrate to. Conditions are harsh and unhygienic, with growing risks of water-borne diseases. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
A malnutrition ward in Garowe hospital, one of only three specialised feeding facilities in all of Puntland. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
Families are being separated in order to survive with women, children and the elderly making their way to the edges of towns while husbands and sons take the surviving livestock hundreds of kilometres to find pasture. [Ashley Hamer/Al Jazeera]
