Drought and Extreme Conditions in Puntland

Amid shrinking resources, pastoralist communities, fishermen and farmers find themselves on the frontlines of climate change, as Somalia recovers from four decades of conflict.

Seasons have become unpredictable, and more than 2.5 million Somalis have been affected by recent droughts.

In Puntland, these shocks are disrupting ancestral practices. Surat, a widow and mother of four, lost 90% of her herd. “Before, we were rich, we had camels and goats,” she recalls. Now living in Tib Caro, she survives with her twenty remaining goats, in a hamlet that has settled along the roadside. But during droughts, goats lose all market value-a stark reminder of economic fragility.

For these new settlers, access to water is the main challenge. In Dalsan, the nearest source lies 100 km away, and residents depend on costly water trucks. Mohamed, once the owner of 500 goats, now has only 70. To adapt, he added camels, able to survive a week without water. “Water has become our main expense,” he says.

These upheavals have also triggered mass displacement. On the outskirts of Garowe, the Shabeelle camp hosts families from across the country. Sa’dia, 38, survives there with her five children after losing her herd. Her 15-year-old son now polishes shoes to feed the family: “The city has devoured his childhood.”

The scarcity of resources also fuels violent tensions. In 2023, ten people were killed in Sherbi during clashes over grazing land. Local mediation helped restore calm, but peace remains fragile.

On the Indian Ocean coast, the impacts are just as visible. In Eyl, farmland has been rendered uncultivable by the 2020 Gati’s cyclone, while fishermen face strong winds, cyclones, and foreign competition. “Life here has become increasingly difficult,” says 74-year-old Elder Omar. His boats now sail only six months of the year.

More than ever, peace and security appear as essential conditions—not only to mitigate the impacts of climate change, but also to offer prospects of prosperity to a region scarred by more than forty years of instability.

This project was made possible thanks to the logistical support of UNDP-Somalia.

This project was published on The Guardian and ND-Aktuell.

Aerial view of the hamlet of Tib Caro, set along the road between Qardho and Bosaso in the north of the Puntland autonomous state. Once nomadic, its residents have recently settled.

Surat settled in Tib Caro eight years ago after losing 90% of her goat herd. She and her husband lived from pastoralism, with 200 goats and two camels used for transport and mobility.

After losing her herd, Surat also lost her husband to an asthma attack. She now lives in a traditional hut with her four children and the twenty goats she has left.

One of her daughters steps out to water a goat. The hut is enclosed by a fence of dead branches that keeps the livestock in and protects the home from other animals.

Behind Surat, a water reserve shared by the entire hamlet—people and animals alike. It is refilled three times a month by water truck, at $80 per delivery, with the cost pooled by residents. “Because I come from a vulnerable family, I pay 10 or 5 dollars. Sometimes people lend me money; they wait until I receive something and then I repay.”

Goats are the wealth of Puntland’s pastoralists, with part of the livestock exported to Gulf countries. During droughts, goats lose weight and are considered risky assets: demand falls and, inevitably, herd value drops too. A hard lesson in economics.

Aerial view of Dalsan, a village on a busy road running north–south across Puntland. Houses here are built in masonry. The nearest water source is over 100 km away; in the dry season, water is brought in by truck.

Mohamed Ibrahim Saed, born in the district of Bandarbeyla, moved to Dalsan over than fifty-eight years ago. He chose the village for his children’s schooling and the road that connects it to the rest of the country. Married twice, he has fourteen children. In Bandarbeyla, the land is not suited to herding—it is mainly a fishing area.

Mohamed on how the climate crisis has hit his herd: “The droughts took most of my animals. I once had forty camels; now only six remain. I had five hundred goats; today there are about seventy. In the rainy season, herds multiply and grow stronger, but in the dry season they perish. Diseases spread, and with veterinary services rarely available, losses are heavy. Predators like hyenas suffer too.”

Like many now-settled pastoralists, Mohamed’s wife runs a tea stall as a side activity. During camel lactation, she serves tea with camel milk—an extra income for the household.

Mohamed’s camels graze near the village. For many herders, camel husbandry is better suited to new water conditions: goats can survive 2–3 days without drinking; camels nearly a week.

In Dalsan, the water reservoir built by a consortium of NGOs and the UNDP has been empty for three months. This adaptation project was meant to store rainwater for the dry season. “The biggest challenge here is water. People and livestock depend on it. A reservoir was built; even if it never fills completely, it has brought some relief. People here—and from nearby villages—drink from it. The nearest reliable source is about a hundred kilometres away.”

Aerial view of the reservoir. In the distance, sand dikes channel runoff into a 65 m × 85 m basin lined with plastic sheeting. The project draws on an ancestral technique of seasonal retention using sand dikes.

Hassan Farah beside an empty 6,000-litre tank. Three times a month, the village refills this communal reservoir. A 6,000-litre truckload costs $150 (2.5 cents per litre)—a heavy burden for low-income households.

A water truck idles on a roadside in Puntland, about to deliver water to a village. In the dry season, supply relies largely on these deliveries.

Aerial view of a goat herd grazing across Puntland’s arid plains. In the dry season, scarce water points threaten livestock survival.

Aerial view of Shabeelle displacement camp on the outskirts of Garowe, Puntland’s political capital. Somalia has roughly 4 million internally displaced people.

Sa’dia Sirad Abdullahi, 38, from southern Somalia near the Ethiopian border. Three years ago, a major drought wiped out her herd—25 goats and 35 cows—forcing her to abandon agro-pastoralism. She now shares a tin-sheet hut with two other single women and their ten children, rented for $10 a month.

Sa’dia fills a 20-litre jerrycan. Access to safe water remains limited: she pays $0.40 for 20 litres at a local kiosk. For vulnerable families, water consumes a crushing share of the budget. In July, Sherbeelle camp had to be evacuated after a flash flood in the local riverbed.

Sa’dia buys staples at a small kiosk near her tin-sheet home. Each day, she relies on the money her 15-year-old son, Abdusalam, brings back to afford their single daily meal.

Ister processes a phone payment. Her family fled Mogadishu when she was a child, after the civil war broke out in 1991. They settled in Bosaso and later opened a small shop in the camp in Garowe.

At Ister’s shop, displaced residents recharge their phones. With no direct access to water or electricity, they use US dollars and mobile money transfers, now near-universal in Somalia.

Sa’dia returns home and speaks with Oden Ahmed, with whom she shares the tin-sheet hut. Divorced, Oden also moved to Shabeelle after losing fifteen cows.

Aerial view of Sherbi’s main thoroughfare. In April 2023, a pasture-related dispute left ten people dead across several clans.

During the clashes, the clan of 80-year-old Ali Omar Guri lost two members. His hardware store was looted as the village emptied under threat. ““For four months, Sheerbi stood empty. Only the soldiers remained, while reconciliation efforts unfolded. My own shop was left behind, still full of goods. I managed to carry away only a little. Later, clan militias looted what was left.”

A stray bullet pierced the wall of his shop. “My shop was one of the places struck by bullets — but I survived. For that, I give thanks to God.” Even before the gunfire, his clan had lost over half its herd to drought. Their livestock is their most precious asset. To save what remained, they moved onto grazing claimed by other clans.

Since then, residents have returned to Sherbi, and Ali Omar Guri has reopened his shop, but he sees the change of climate as a catalyst of tensions: “Sherbi became the scene of conflict, driven by climate pressures. When drought displaced rural families, they sought safety in the towns. But scarce land and water led to fighting over the little that remained.”

Abdi Saed Osman, governor of Karkaar region, where Sherbi is located. On 9 September 2023, together with representatives of Somalia’s Ministry of the Interior, he led a mediation and reconciliation process bringing together clan representatives.

Elders’ meeting in Sherbi, under a tree along the main thoroughfare. Three forms of justice coexist here: the Somali state system, sharia (Islamic law), and customary justice (heer). All three were brought to bear in the aftermath of the events of April 2023.

Sahra Mohamed Ahmed’s tea stall was looted during the conflict. Back in the village, she reopened, but says access to water remains the main barrier to a normal life. “Little by little, people are returning to Sherbi. But the difficulties are far from over. The most urgent problem is water.”

Her son, a soldier on leave at the time, was shot and wounded. Hit in the leg, he was evacuated to Jijiga (Ethiopia) for treatment and still bears the consequences.

Muse Mohamed prays at the grave of his nephew, killed in the clan conflict. The ten victims were buried in the same cemetery on the village outskirts.

At the mouth of the Nugaal—once a fertile agricultural soil—a powerful 2020 flood buried fields under a thick layer of sand. Now too sandy, the land is no longer farmed.

Cyclone Gati’s exceptional force covered Marwa Jama Darawal plots with a thick layer of sand. They are no longer cultivable, leaving a deep mark on her daily life. “For us, agriculture meant everything. It was our only source of livelihood. We harvested bananas, mangoes, papayas, all from our own land. But today, that life has vanished. Hardship has taken its place.”

In Eyl, Marwa Jama Darawal draws water from a garden reserve. The town has its own source, lowering costs: a water-truck delivery is around $80, unlike other Puntland areas further from sources.

Aerial view of Eyl on the Indian Ocean. Along Somalia’s coast, the climate crisis also manifests in more intense cyclones. In 2020, Cyclone Gati was the strongest ever recorded in Somalia. Rapid warming of the Indian Ocean disrupts the monsoon and strengthens the “Somali Jet,” a seasonal coastal wind.

A woman waits for the morning catch to be divided, at the mouth of the Nugaal. In the early 1970s, Eyl was one of the most prosperous ports on Somalia’s coast. Before Bosaso’s port was built, boats from the Gulf and Yemen came to buy fish and lobster.

Elder Omar Mohamed Matan, 74, watches his third boat return. “Life here has grown increasingly difficult. Cyclones and torrential rains destroy our homes and farms—and sometimes take lives.”

A fisherman folds his nets. Elder Omar’s artisanal fishery suffers from foreign vessels that fish illegally and damage the nets. In the 2000s, this conflict over fishery resources helped fuel the rise of armed groups—described as informal “coast guards” by Somali authorities and as “pirates” by the international community.

The night’s catch includes a few tuna, sold in the village. Owner of three boats, Elder Omar says his crews can now sail only six months a year; the rest of the time winds are too strong, keeping them near shore and away from the open sea’s bounty.

With a gradual return to calm, Omar sees Somalis from the diaspora coming back with capital that boosts the local economy. For him, this fragile peace partly offsets the impacts of the climate crisis.