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Orphans Facing Street Life After Saudi NGO Pulls Out

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
May 21, 2003
Posted to the web May 21, 2003
Nairobi
Somali communities have reacted with shock and dismay over a decision to close
the Saudi-based Al-Haramayn aid agency after the US government accused it of
links with terrorists.
The Islamic agency closed its doors in Somalia on Saturday after the Saudi
government ordered its international staff to leave the country, Nur Alasow a
Somali employee of the agency told IRIN.
Al-Haramayn first came to Somalia in 1992, at the height of the famine which
led to the failed US-led Operation Restore Hope. The agency ran a total of
eight orphanages - five of them in Mogadishu - housing about 3,500 children
throughout the country. The other orphanages were in Merka in southern Somalia,
and Burao and Hargaysa in the self-declared republic of Somaliland.
Alasow said that most of the orphans the agency cared for had lost one or both
parents in the civil war.
"We have no idea what we are going to do now," he said. "We have enough
supplies to last till the end of the month. After that it is up to Allah."
"The impact of the closure of Al-Haramayn orphanages will be most acutely felt
by the poorest of the poor", added Abdullahi Haji Abukar, who worked with the
children. "The vast majority of the children come from homes where if they get
one meal a day, they consider themselves lucky".
"If someone else does not take over the orphanages it will be a disaster," he
warned.
Alasow agreed, adding that if the orphanages did not get help, "most of the
children will probably end up on the streets and join the large number of young
gunmen roaming around, causing mayhem".
Abukar told IRIN that closing down the orphanages was "worse than the closure
of Al-Barakaat". The vital Al-Barakaat money transfer company was closed in
2001, after it was accused of links with terror organisations.
"This is taking food from the mouths of children," he stressed. "These children
did not have much but they had a roof over their head, three meals a day and
schooling. Now they have nothing."
"Will those responsible for the closure of Al-Haramayn take care of these
children or is it that the lives of 3,000 Somali children are of no
consequence?", he asked.
A senior UN humanitarian official described the situation as "very disturbing".
"The lives of these vulnerable children will now be at risk, particularly as
agencies working in cities like Mogadishu are unlikely to be able to look after
the children, in the short term at least," he told IRIN.
And an official of the US embassy in Nairobi said: "This is a fairly new
situation and we are looking into it."

   

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