Hargeisa/Dadaab, Somalia - Sahra Hassan Nuur feels like a stranger in her own country. The mother of seven tugs her veil to protect the small child she is holding from the glaring sun. Shade is a rare phenomenon in this refugee camp in central Hargeisa - the capital of the de facto republic of Somaliland, in northwestern Somalia.
Around 2.2 million of Somalia's 9 million people have fled the civil war in their homeland. During their search for normalcy, security and peace, many have for years seen nothing but the desperation of overcrowded camps.
Nine years ago, 40-year-old Hassan Nuur sought refuge in the Hargeisa camp after initially fleeing to Ethiopia. 'After all, this is my homeland,' she said.
But this is not quite how she imagined her return to what is largely the only peaceful part of Somalia. 'I wanted to rebuild our house and look for work. But now I'm a refugee in my own country.'
For international aid organizations and the United Nations, people like Hassan Nuur are internally displaced people. Yet for the government of Somaliland, she and her neighbour, Fatma Abdi Mohamed, are foreign refugees. Ultimately, they are 'tolerated' in the camp bordering the presidential palace's garden walls.
The refugees have to make do with day labour in the region where more than 70 per cent of the population is unemployed.
Although Abdi Mohamed and her three children have been living in Hargeisa for a year, she is still glad to have escaped the constant violence at home in the capital Mogadishu. 'At least we are safe here,' said the widow. 'My children can gradually start forgetting the war. My eldest son still has nightmares.'
Her husband was killed in Mogadishu - one of many civilian victims of the 20-year conflict still raging in the Horn of Africa. Abdi Mohammed dreads the day when government troops or Islamist militia try to forcibly recruit her 10-year-old son.
'In my neighbourhood, boys around his age were taken away to the fighting,' said the 30-year-old woman. 'I never wish to return to Mogadishu.'
The two women are among an estimated 1.5 million Somalis who have fled their hometowns for relatively safe parts of the country. Almost 700,000 refugees live mainly in neighbouring African states. The crisis-torn country is thus one of the few countries with the most refugees and displaced persons worldwide.
Yet the more the radical Islamist al-Shabaab (The Youth) fights to overthrow the government of Somalia and establish a fundamentalist state, the greater the unease that the refugees are confronted with.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly accused Kenya in particular of reprisals and harassing Somalis fleeing the conflict. The East African country is bearing the main burden of accepting refugees.
In Dadaab, near the Somali border, a refugee camp alone shelters around 350,000 people - making it the biggest in the world.
As the border in the semi-desert between Kenya and Somalia can hardly be guarded, security authorities fear al-Shabaab insurgents are entering the country among thousands of refugees arriving every month.
There are also fears that they could be recruiting new fighters from among Kenya's Somali communities. Aid organizations have long been warning that Dadaab is bursting at the seams. Since the beginning of the year alone, 44,000 new arrivals have been registered. And the UN expects numbers in the refugee camp to reach 450,000 by the end of the year.
By Eva Krafczyk (M&c news)
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