“The Situation Is Bad For Women”

Photo: IMC

Every day women and children stand in line to get help from medical staff at IMC's mobil clinics.

Afgoye, Somalia - Amina’s life tells the story of war in Somalia. When she was just two years old her father was killed in the inter-clan war that eventually destroyed Mogadishu. Her mother was not able to look after her and Amina Mohammed Salad grew up in the SOS Children’s Village in Somalia’s capital. “They gave me an education and sent me to be trained as a nurse and midwife. They became my family,” says the 20-year-old woman. “I began working in the maternity and pediatric hospital run by SOS in Mogadishu. It was my first job and I delivered babies.”

Then she heard that International Medical Corps was looking for a nurse in Afgoye to help the people who had fled Mogadishu in recent fighting. “I was in the right place,” she recalls. In November of last year fighting got worse and tens of thousands joined the exodus out of the capital to set up camp along the road to Afgoye. “It is important work I am doing, and it is the first job I found by myself.”

The hospital in Mogadishu where she started her career is now damaged and closed, trapped in the fighting between Ethiopian-backed government forces, insurgents, and other armed groups.

Photo: IMC

"I like to help the people who are poor. I will not stop doing this until I am old."

“When there was no fighting women used to come to the hospital to give birth. Now all doctors have left the city. Here in the camps the situation is bad for the women because they cannot afford transport to the next clinic or buy medicine when they are sick.”

Every day, six days a week, Amina is part of one of the three International Medical Corps teams that leave Afgoye and go to the camps along the road to Mogadishu. She alone sees hundreds of patients a day, mainly mothers and children, in mobile clinics that reach out to more than 8,000 patients each month.

The lack of hygiene, sanitation, and water has turned the camps into breeding grounds for diarrhea and other infectious diseases, which in turn worsen the already high levels of malnutrition. Children under five suffer the most. “I am very happy about the work I am doing. I treat many people. And they come to us because we are there for them. It makes me happy that they are happy to see us.”

One day Amina wants to get married and have children. But never, she says, will she stop working as a nurse. “I like to help the people who are poor. I will not stop doing this until I am old.”