Almost two years after relocation, makeshift dwellers struggle in Dire Dawa

[Deeq A.]

Jemila Seid, 46, arrived in the eastern city of Dire Dawa along with many others here on September 2017, after conflict broke out along the border between Oromia and Somali regions. Like so many of the residents in the makeshift camp found in Dire Dawa’s Millennium Park, she says she fled the ethnic conflict in Somali Regional State capital, Jigjiga. She arrived here with two of her children, who were in grade three and five. Here they have no access to formal education facilities, which means it’s been two years now that they have been missed out of class. “We had a good life there. Here, we are crawling like a dog,” she says. “I would like to go back to my former village,” she says. But she adds that returning there at the present time is unthinkable. She doesn’t know when it will be.

Source: Hiiraan Online