Faduma Hassan Mohamed has never witnessed a time like this.
When rains failed to fall as in previous years, she thought the river near her village of BuuloWarbo in Somalia’s southern Kuntunwarey district would not run dry.
First, the skies above became cloudless, she said, then the air hot and dry. Then the fertile soil below her feet that used to provide for her family turned into dark brown dust. Then the river dried up.
“We were farmers. We tended the land. We had a river and we used to water our crops with its water. We grew crops like maize and beans. Now, we [have] lost all of that,” the mother-of-six told Al Jazeera.
“There was no sign of rain in the sky and no water in the river. I can’t even remember the last time we harvested anything from the farm,” Faduma, who does not know her age, added.
BuuloWarbo, more than 140km (87 miles) southeast of the capital, Mogadishu, is in the Lower Shabelle region, one of the country’s breadbasket areas. The region used to produce food for Mogadishu. But after four failed rainy seasons, its people are on the move, trekking by foot towards the seaside capital.
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Some have died on the way. Others, like Faduma, survived and sought refuge in a new IDP camp in the Dayniile area on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Two of her children are with her but the rest are with their grandmother.
The Horn of Africa country is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, according to the government and United Nations, with nearly a quarter of a million people facing starvation.
Most Somalis are pastoralists, relying on their livestock for food. But according to the UN, about three million livestock animals have perished due to the continuing drought and more than 805,000 people have been displaced. Nearly 7.1 million Somalis, almost half of the country’s population, face acute levels of food insecurity.
“I’m here for 10 days [and] we have not received any help,” Faduma said about the plight of new arrivals at the Dayniile camp. “No one is here to help us. There is only a water tap. Can water be food? We are just drinking water.”
The East African country has witnessed several droughts in the past, with the frequency and severity increasing in recent years.
“We are not among those that cause climate change but we are victims of it,” AbdirahmanAbdishakurWarsame, Somalia’s special presidential envoy for drought response, told Al Jazeera. “In the last 30 years, due to climate change and insecurity, there have been 12 droughts and 16 floods. The Somali people are between floods and droughts.”
“The drought is affecting all parts of Somalia,” Abdirahman told Al Jazeera. “Every province has a pocket where the situation is severe. We need about $1.4bn to respond to the drought situation.”
