Aid slow to arrive for people in northern Somalia fleeing Las Anod fighting
Aid slow to arrive for people in northern Somalia fleeing Las Anod fighting ‘The only thing we get is water, but there is no food.’ Temporary tent shelters in an informal refugee camp outside Kalabaydh, Somalia, in May 2023. More than 185,000 civilians have fled the fighting in nearby Lasanod. But now they need assistance to establish their livelihood LASANOD, Somalia Hundreds of thousands of people are stranded in Somalia’s drought-hit countryside after fleeing fighting in the disputed northern city of Las Anod, with cash-strapped aid agencies struggling to reach those in need. Heavy fighting began in February between the security forces of breakaway Somaliland, which have occupied Las Anod since 2007, and local clans demanding separation and direct administration by Somalia’s federal government in Mogadishu. As mortar shells fired by Somaliland soldiers started falling in Las Anod, the capital of the Sool region, Zeinab Abdi Kareem, a widow, packed up her 12 children and fled. Tr