War and Drought in Puntland State Worsen Hardship for Displaced Families in Bari

In the harsh light of midday in Hariro, a settlement carved into the rock and dust of Somalia’s Bari region, Mahado Cilmi Matan tightens the cloth walls of a shelter stitched from branches and tin. The hut barely holds her and her 11 children. Shade is thin, cold seeps in at night, and the wind picks at the seams. A year after war began in the Almiskad mountains above them, the family is still displaced and living without income, pushed to the edge by conflict and a relentless drought.

“There is no food available,” Mahado said. “We used to survive on our goats, but drought has destroyed our livestock.”

Her story mirrors a wider crisis in northern Somalia’s Puntland State state, where a campaign by Puntland State forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, set out to crush Islamic State militants hiding in the highlands. The fighting, compounded by years of failed rains, has battered villages, displaced families and stripped away the basics of survival. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported on Jan. 22, 2026, that more than 200,000 vulnerable families remain in distress, contending with lost livelihoods, collapsed services and relentless uncertainty.

For Mahado, a widow since 2019, the losses are stark. Of 180 goats she once depended on for milk and meat, 150 died in the drought. The few that made it out with the family during their April 2025 flight from the mountains are too weak to produce milk or fetch a price at market. With no work in Hariro and no assistance at hand, she lives on credit from shopkeepers when they are willing to extend it. Nearly a year of borrowing has left her more than $1,000 in debt; some stores have closed her book.

Water — scarce and expensive — shapes each day. Local wells have run dry. Communities now rely on trucked deliveries coming over rutted roads from Armo and Bosaso, more than 100 kilometers away. A single bowser can cost up to $300, beyond the reach of families with nothing to spare. Mahado moves door to door, asking neighbors for a jerry can or two and pleading with livestock owners to allow her remaining goats a drink.

“Water is our biggest problem. Even people themselves have nothing to drink,” she said. “We are pastoralists living through a severe drought, and there is nothing to live on now.”

In the Almiskad hills, the conflict has destroyed homes, water points and roads, local residents say, sealing off return for those who fled. U.S. airstrikes were conducted as recently as January, underscoring the enduring insecurity that keeps families away from their farms and grazing lands — and away from any chance of rebuilding.

On the outskirts of Barookhle, another small village in Bari, the toll is similarly punishing. In a displacement camp at the edge of town, Dhudi Guled Hassan rations a single pot of sorghum, a 30-kilogram bag distributed by local authorities in late December now scraped to the bottom. Her nine children eat once a day if there is enough firewood to cook. When the family first arrived, they could borrow food. Now, as everyone tightens belts, credit has evaporated.

“We have no food and no water,” she said. She owes $500 to local shops. In January, after missed payments, her credit was cut off.

Before the war, Dhudi’s family lived in Hagar, surviving on rain-fed farming and a few goats. After displacement, they brought 60 animals with them; 56 have died in the past two months from thirst, hunger and disease. The four that remain are fading. Relatives patched together a single iron-sheet room for the family to sleep in. Her husband serves as a soldier in the Puntland State military, but offers no support, she said.

The collapse of household income has rippled across every part of life. Two of Dhudi’s children have dropped out of school because she couldn’t pay the $5 monthly fee per child. “When we said we had no money, the children were sent away,” she said. “They have stayed home for two months without lessons.”

Health care is out of reach. Three of her children recently fell ill with fever, cough and diarrhea. There is no health facility in the camp, and without cash for transport, seeking treatment is unrealistic.

The deteriorating conditions match what aid workers describe across Bari region: shrinking access to clean water, rising debt burdens, decimated herds and fraying social support systems. Families have moved multiple times to chase scarce water or avoid front lines, only to find conditions just as dire. For people who built their lives on livestock and rain, the compound shocks of conflict and climate have eroded the very strategies that once helped them endure.

In its January assessment, the ICRC outlined the layered damage: unexploded mines, drained water sources, destroyed farmland, massive livestock losses, and the breakdown of education and health services. “For more than a year, people have been living far from their original homes under extremely difficult conditions,” said Abdirahman Abdullahi of the ICRC. “They survive on one meal a day in shelters that offer little protection from heat or cold.”

To keep critical services functioning, the ICRC has delivered medical supplies to hospitals in Bosaso and Balidhin and provided cash assistance to around 10,000 displaced families in Bari, the organization said. Such support helps families cover immediate needs and prevents them from resorting to distress sales, like selling off the last productive animals or essential household items. But the scale of need far outpaces available aid.

In Hariro, where rocky outcrops cast short shadows and the road dust lingers in the air, the daily calculus is unrelenting. A jerry can of water versus a small bag of flour. A prayer that the shop will allow another line in the ledger. Another child kept home from class. In Barookhle, camp leaders say new arrivals still trickle in, some from deeper in the mountains after fresh fighting or continued airstrikes. The fortunate find relatives to shelter them. Most don’t.

For mothers like Mahado and Dhudi, the future remains tethered to decisions far beyond their control — how long the offensive in the Almiskad mountains will last, when the rains might come, whether cash and water deliveries can stretch to the end of the month. Their hopes are modest: a secure place to sleep, a steady water source, enough food to eat twice a day, and a way back to work that doesn’t rely on charity.

Until then, they wait with the rest of Puntland State’s displaced, close to the ground and scanning the horizon — not for the return to normal, which feels out of reach, but for the next delivery truck to crest the ridge.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.