RCA repatriates 5000 IDPs to their native villages in Somalia
Emirates News Agency
Friday, December 30, 2011
Over 400 Somali displaced families living at UAE Raja (Hope) makeshift
camp in Mogadishu were finally back home and assumed normal life thanks
to a repatriation programme carried out by the UAE Red Crescent
Authority (RCA).
RCA Chairman Ahmed Humaid Al Mazrouie said reports from Somali capital
Mogadishu had confirmed that 465 families comprising about 3,000
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) had already returned to their towns
and villages in the second phase of the programme.
The first convoy, he indicated, departed Mogadishu on November 3
allowing 2,000 IDPs to go back home, bringing to 5,000 the total number
of repatriates from the 30,000 IDPs camp.
''Launched in November 2011, the RCA repatriation programmes provides
every repatriating family with rations enough for three months in
addition to $ 400 to help it purchase basic needs for resettlement. The
aim is to help IDPs to go back to their fields and benefit from the good
rainy season.
The UAE initiative, he added, had been well received and appreciated by
the Somali President, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed,and his government who both
lauded it as a UAE humanitarian gesture that would help restore security
and stability in the drought-hit country.
Dr. Saleh Al Taie, RCA Deputy Secretary General for Relief and Projects,
said US$ 1.6 million had been earmarked for the repatriation programme.
''The rainfall in the drought-struck regions provided an encouraging
factor for Somali IDPs to go back home and practice farming and grazing,
therefore becoming producers boosting local economy rather than waiting
for assistance,''he said.
The one-year programme, he said,is being implemented in coordination with the Somali government and Somali Red Crescent Society.
Al Taie revealed that a number of international relief organisations
including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
Qatari Red Crescent and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had
approached the RCA office in Mogadishu to get first-hand information on
the implementation mechanism of the successful humanitarian initiative.
The RCA, he added, had contracted companies to dig tens of water for the
purpose of drinking and irrigation to convince repatriates stay at
their villages.
Three planes and a vessel carrying thousands of tons of relief supplies
were sent by the RCA to Mogadishu, the recent of which was a plane
loaded with 35 tons of dates and food assistance donated by the court of
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu
Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
The Women and Health Alliance International (WAHA) has also donated 500
medical tents in support of the RCA's relief operations in Somalia.