Fatuma Ali Ibrahim, a 32 year old mother lives with family composing her four daughters, her husband and her aged mother at Eylo camp in Afgooye district-Somalia.

Due to frustrations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic disruption as well as an ongoing floods, life of Fatuma and her family has become increasingly challenging. They migrated to Afgooye corridor in search of work and better living. She was prone to sell vegetables. Due to the market’s closure and social distancing rules, Fatuma and other women of her village have stopped selling vegetables and were seriously damaged by the floods.

The family now solely relies on her unstable income from daily laboring to buy food. The family is not listed as a poor household and faces difficulties in meeting requirements to access basic needs. Fatuma’s household is not the only one suffering because many in her community and others in the camp are in a similar poor livelihood due to the pandemic. Recently, she stopped sending money home as he and his wife had lost their jobs due to the pandemic disease.
“Corona virus has affected our small businesses. Three or four people cannot enter the shops at once, customers are served one by one,’ Business people rely on supplies from Mogadishu. We were felling insecure and the disease could kill many of us. Public transport was also limited” Fatuma says.

“We also learnt signs, symptoms and preventive measure of not only Covid-19 but also other bacterial, infectious and viral diseases as well as keeping high standard of hygiene promotion. Currently we maintain social distancing, use of facemasks and wash our hands regularly from the young to the aged in the community and we feel safe now. Fatuma says, “ I can remember many members a mong the community who greatly benefited in ECHO cash assistance like Sarah mudey Osman paid medical bills for her mother who was critically ill in Kalkal Hospital in Mogadishu .Nuney file Adawe is a mother of 5 and could not afford to have two meals per day and now she is capable off. SHACDO had provided us cash injection of 60 dollars which boosted our live standards; little by little our lives are getting better”, Fatuma concludes.

Fatuma Ali Ibrahim at Eylo IDP camp Afgooye Somalia. Credit t o Mohamed for the photo on 23rd Dec 2020