Galkayo courts jail debtors as families face ruin

Tuesday May 12, 2026

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When Malyun Jama Nur was locked up in Galkayo in January over an unpaid $9,000 debt, her life did not just collapse — it took her four young children with it. Since then, the children have left school and slipped deeper into poverty and neglect.

From prison, Malyun told Radio Ergo the burden of being separated from her family has been unbearable, especially knowing what her children are enduring outside.

“My family has fallen apart. The children I left behind are not safe and could be harmed at any time. They were evicted from the house and are now staying with relatives. Is that not family destruction?” she said.

“When visitors come to see me, I ask them to take the prison food given to me and deliver it to my children. Sometimes I tell them I would rather the children eat it instead of me.”

Her case is one of many in which poor breadwinners have been jailed over debts they could not clear, leaving entire households to absorb the fallout.

In March, her daughter and three sons were forced out of the two rented rooms where they had been living. Around the same time, they were also pulled from school after fees went unpaid.

With her husband dead, Malyun had been the only person supporting the family.

According to local community figures, 63 people are currently imprisoned in Galkayo over unpaid debts. Many, like Malyun, were the sole providers for families now pushed further into hardship.

Her eldest child, an 11-year-old daughter, had been in fifth grade. Her eight-year-old son, who had only just started first grade, also dropped out when Malyun could no longer meet the $10 monthly school fees for each child.

“At the beginning of every month, I paid the school fees. But after I was jailed and the money stopped coming, the school told them either bring the fees or leave,” she said.

Her children are now living with relatives, who are also caring for Malyun’s elderly mother, a dependent woman who suffers from mental illness.

Malyun made her living selling goat meat from a small table in Galkayo market, earning about $5 to $10 a day. That income covered rent, food, school costs and medicine for her mother and children.

But as her business struggled, her debts mounted. She kept buying goats on credit from traders even as customers, themselves under strain, failed to pay for meat they had taken on credit.

“Every three days I had to slaughter another goat because that was how we survived. Nobody was helping me. I had to buy milk and diapers for my mother, milk for the children, food, and school expenses. Everything depended on me. That is how I fell into debt,” Malyun explained.

The traders who supplied her livestock eventually took the matter to court, and she was sentenced to remain in prison until she repays what she owes.

In Galkayo’s system, debt prisoners can sometimes be visited by relatives or community members who may help settle the amount. Malyun says no one has yet been able to secure her release or ease the pressure on her children.

Another family in the city is facing a similar ordeal. Issa Abdilkadir Abdulle is being held over unpaid compensation tied to an accidental injury case.

Issa, a displaced labourer and father of eight, was ordered to pay compensation equal to $2,100 after a man was injured last year by a handcart he was operating.

He has remained in prison because he has not been able to raise the cash or provide the three camels required as compensation, while his family struggles in an internal displacement camp in Galkayo.

“I was the only one working. My wife calls me crying and says there is no milk for the baby. She asks if I have managed to find help anywhere. But I tell her I have nothing because I am the one imprisoned,” Issa told Radio Ergo.

For the first two months after his arrest, his family survived on food bought on credit from a small shop in the camp. But once the unpaid bill reached $250, shopkeepers stopped extending more debt.

“We became unwanted because of the debt,” he said. “If you take goods today, they expect payment tomorrow. When they don’t receive it, they refuse to give you more.”

The family now relies on the occasional cooked meal or small food donations from neighbours.

Maymun Alinoor Gayfane, chairperson of the Galkayo Women’s Association, said local women’s groups had stepped in to help free some women jailed over debt by raising community donations.

Three women were released in February and March after the association paid debts of $25,000, $6,000 and $3,000 respectively.

“We selected women who were extremely poor and had no assets or support. We focused on vulnerable people who truly needed help,” Maymun told Radio Ergo.

She said many of those imprisoned over debts had been hit by deepening economic hardship, rising prices and the collapse of small businesses that poor families depend on to survive.