WATER POLITICS

The pastoral community of central Somalia’s Galmudug state is getting pulled ever deeper into a complex web of conflict as a result of climate change.

In a region with a history of hostile environmental conditions and unpredictable weather patterns, the effects of a warming climate are being felt more intensely than ever. As a result of a five-year drought that has engulfed the Horn of Africa, Galmudug has suffered more than any other part of Somalia.

With water and grazing lands becoming scarcer, tensions are high among neighbouring clans, giving rise to violent conflicts over dwindling resources. The result is widespread death and displacement.

Epicentre of disaster

The people of Galmudug have relied on livestock for their sustenance and livelihood for centuries.

Historically, swathes of green pasture and abundant water points have allowed for pastoralism to evolve as the basis of the local cultural identity for generations. However, the ravages of climate change have turned the once-verdant region into a battleground.

Climate change has caused rainfall to become unreliable, leaving large tracts of land parched and barren. A prolonged period of drought has seen once-green pasture lands wilt away, revealing a desolate and increasingly hopeless landscape.

The local pastoral communities who are dependent on these resources to feed their animals are today confronted with an emerging harsh reality. Amid the struggles to sustain the life of humans and their livestock, rifts have widened among the communities as herders seek to secure the few remaining water and pasture resources.

Tensions are escalating as disputes increase, causing violent conflict as the once-close-knit social fabric is torn apart. Herders have turned on each other and families are being displaced in mass.

Conflict and displacement

Hawa Hassan, 60, is typical of the local population whose livelihood is intimately tied to their herd. Like many here, she is worried about the mounting hostility between former neighbours.

Hassan says she has suffered numerous attacks by other pastoral communities, leading her to move to the outskirts of Dhusamareeb, the capital. She has since constructed a makeshift hut out of sticks and plastic.

The few animals that Hassan managed to save during the drought were later stolen by another tribe that clashed with hers in a conflict over pasture. As a consequence, Hawa has settled in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) for the foreseeable future.

“Life here is very challenging, and you can imagine someone who had a good number of livestock but lost them all in a short period of time,” she tells The Africa Report. “There is no choice but to remain here until I can rebuild my life.”

For Hassan, conflict is the inevitable result of the erratic rainfall that the region has experienced in the recent past.

Precious water

Most villagers keep livestock and are now forced to forage for water and pasture across the state. Confrontations are unrelenting between communities as each defends its own territory against intrusion from neighbouring herders, leading to violence and displacement.

“Once, we shared these resources peacefully,” Hassan says. “But the drought has driven us into competition, creating conflicts and fracturing our bonds.”

Muno Salad is another victim of climate change. She was displaced from her home as rivalry over grazing livestock escalated between neighbouring tribes.

Now she lives in the IDP camp on the outskirts of Dhusamareeb, where she movedwith her sick daughter after leaving all their belongings behind.

“After three of my relatives were killed as a result of conflict based on resources by the rival tribe and they denied me to grow crops on my farm, I decided to move to this camp,” Salad tells The Africa Report. 

Meagre mitigation

Faced with the urgency of the situation, the EU is one of many international groups that has taken action with a two-year mitigation project that recently concluded. It proved insufficient to cover the community’s diverse needs.

Announcing the completion of the project, Somali Interior Minister Ahmed Moallim urged aid agencies to do all they can to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.

“Climate change has a real impact on communities in this region, as the rain patterns have become increasingly erratic, causing some communities to be displaced,” he said.

The Horn Centre, a research organisation based in Galmudug, has conducted a study to understand how climate change has impacted local communities. Through interviews with community leaders and victims of the fight over scarce resources, the centre recorded the profound effects of the conflict on the lives of pastoralists.

Dreams of harmony

“There has been a long history of conflicts within the community that has never been resolved,” Horn Centre executive director Ahmed Abdisalam tells The Africa Report. “But the fresh conflict and battles over scarcity of resources and pasture within the tribes have added insult to injury.” 

According to the centre, a durable solution to local conflicts is required or the situation will only get worse. These emerging confrontations have forced families to make agonising choices, sometimes relocating from their ancestral lands to more favourable areas in search of food and water. 

Meanwhile, in the IDP camp, Hawa Hassan remains hopeful for a brighter future. She dreams of a day when climate change will no longer displace communities and rob them of their livelihoods.

“My greatest wish is that, one day, communities will live in harmony together and that conflicts over scarcity of pasture and resources caused by climate change will no longer exist,” she says.