Conflict, climate change and displacement in the Somali Region of Ethiopia

Until recently, most of the existing studies on displacement or forced migration have tended to neatly distinguish between conflict- and climate-induced displacements. The same was true with media reports, and governmental and non-governmental organisations’ interventions. In this flawed approach, climate-induced displacements – especially those that are slow-onset (e.g., drought-related displacements) – have attracted little attention on the part of researchers, donors and government actors. This might be because most attention and resources go to the displacements induced by violent conflicts. More importantly, there has been less emphasis on how the impacts of the two reinforce each other in affecting the victims.

In this article, I will highlight the approaches to displacement in the face of conflict and climate change, and the impact of climate change on communities affected by displacement. This contribution is based on my work conducted in the Somali National Regional State of Ethiopia between 2021 and 2023 for the Protracted Displacement Economies project.

Conflict, climate change and displacements in the Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa has been experiencing extensive displacement due to the severe impact of both slow- and rapid-onset climate change and protracted conflict. In 2023, it hosted over 16.8 million people displaced due to conflict, drought and flooding. Out of this, 12.2 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs) while 4.6 million are refugees and asylum seekers. Between 2021 and early 2023 alone, a historic drought that hit the region displaced 2.3 million people from southern and southeastern Ethiopia, Somalia and Northern Kenya.

Ethiopia, with a population of over 120 million, is among the most affected countries in the Horn of Africa. In the last several years, it has been facing unprecedented levels of displacement due to conflict and drought. As of June 2023, the country has registered 4.4 million IDPs, who are hosted in numerous camps and camp-like environments. Additionally, the country also hosts 970,299 refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan.

The Somali National Regional State of Ethiopia hosts 102,000 IDPs in protracted displacement, primarily displaced due to internal conflict. According to a recent assessment (limited to only accessible areas), the regional state hosts 542,807 climate-affected IDPs (the regional state claims the number is more than double) caused by the recent drought. In addition, the regional state hosts close to 300,000 refugees displaced due to conflicts in neighbouring Somalia. Of course, some of these refugees might be displaced due to the recurrent drought in Somalia. However, they refrain from registering themselves as ‘climate change refugees’ since this would not be an acceptable reason for resettlement in a third country.

Flooding has become an emerging but potentially devastating extreme climate shock in a region recurrently hit by drought. When rain came after three consecutive years of drought in May 2023, then again in October and November of the same year, southeastern Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya – areas that had suffered from drought – were again hit by ‘unprecedented floods’. In November 2023, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya reported that millions were displaced due to flooding.

Refugee and IDP governance in Ethiopia

Refugees and IDPs are dealt with differently by the displacement governance. Refugee management is considered a mandate of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Refugee and Returnees Service (RRS), a national institute. These two agencies manage refugee camps, but refugees receive monthly rations or cash, though quite insufficient, from the World Food Programme. Partner organisations such as international and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other UN agencies might participate in other aspects of refugee life (e.g., education, health and gender) with permission from the RRS and UNHCR.

By contrast, there is confusion about who is mandated to care for IDPs. Officially, the Disaster Risk Management Commission, a government department, should be in charge. However, due to a lack of resources and sufficient expertise, the office’s role is played by partner humanitarian organisations (UN agencies and NGOs) that support IDPs in various sectors (e.g., health and education), thereby leading to confusion and overlapping roles with parallel ministries.

Within the IDP population, those displaced due to conflict and those displaced due to climate change are considered to be two separate categories, and they receive quite dissimilar attention and treatment. Those displaced due to conflict are hosted in big camps with the support of several UN agencies and international and local NGOs. On the other hand, those displaced primarily due to climate shocks are considered temporary, often forced to stay within their district, and are expected to return soon to their villages of origin. As a result, most of them have not been reached by humanitarian organisations. Such approaches are problematic for two reasons.

First, climate-related displacement has become so recurrent that new displacements take place before the old ones are solved. For instance, in April 2023 hundreds of thousands of people were displaced due to drought in the Somali Region, Somalia and northern Kenya. In the following months, from May to November, tens of thousands more were displaced due to floods. In other words, another round of displacement came before the previous one was given a ‘durable solution’. Return is often taken as a durable solution as it is less complicated and cheaper than relocation and local integration. Thus, climate-induced displacement is no longer a temporary and periodic problem that can be treated separately (or less seriously) than other displacements. Policymakers and practitioners need to take this into consideration when they plan for climate displacement.

Second, in a situation where inhabitants’ livelihoods depend on livestock, such as in southern and southeastern Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya, climate shock victims have lost all or most of their assets due to drought or flood. In the Somali Region, even those who are not registered as IDPs have also lost almost everything, which, in other words, means they are displaced from their livelihood, and not just from their home. There have been ‘three consecutive below-average rainy seasons’ in the Somali Region, exacerbating already dire conditions for over 50% of the population. This has caused the death of over 1.4 million heads of livestock in the Somali Region and over 2.3 million in neighbouring Oromia. In other words, returning to the place of origin (and to livelihoods) in the short term, after years of drought and flood, might not be feasible. Thus, the conventional approach to climate-induced displacement – namely the physical displacement alone – needs to be reconsidered to include factors such as vulnerability, lack of access to nutrition, health care, education and protection.

The impact of climate shocks on coping with displacement

In the Horn of Africa region, climate change and conflict reinforce each other in exacerbating the vulnerability of the populations. Besides being a major factor for displacement, climate change affects the capacity of people to cope with the situation of protracted displacement. It is with this consideration that I discuss below the impact of the extreme climate shocks on the displaced communities’ capacity and agency to cope with the situation of displacement, and the local communities’ capacity to support them.

Let me provide three empirical examples. First, I spent April 2022 in Kebribeyah, a district that has been hosting refugees from Somalia since 1990, and is also home to returnees and IDPs. At the moment, many people have lost most of their livestock to drought. Local economic activities such as farming and construction have been stopped due to a shortage of water. Refugees get more consistent international support. Nevertheless, a closer look at their livelihoods reveals that their survival very much depends on engagement in wage labour in the areas of construction and farming, and small businesses. Despite the fact that refugees do not have the legal right to work in Ethiopia, among the Somali no one cares as long as they manage to get the job. At the climax of drought season, petty businesses were also extremely weakened as the displacement-affected communities’ purchasing power had deteriorated. The situation in the refugee camp was explained by what one of my informants called taba’an – a time of crisis. Their relatives, who used to support them, and with whom they used to engage in sharecropping, migrated from the rural areas and overcrowded their small hut, sharing their already scarce resources (e.g., food and water). This shows the extent to which climate change can complicate the life of refugees who have been displaced due to decades-old conflict.

Second, in July 2023 I spent a few weeks in the Dollo Ado refugee camps. During the drought, Dollo Ado coped better than other parts of the region due to its location between two major rivers (Genale and Dawa), and thanks to an irrigation system built by the IKEA Foundation and the refugees’ own experience with irrigation agriculture before their displacement. However, in the summer of 2023, a flood destroyed vegetable farms and ruined the already fragile economy of the displacement-affected people. Many of them were unlikely to be able to return to farming as they could not purchase seeds and other agricultural inputs for another round of planting after they had lost everything to the flood.

Finally, towards the end of July 2023, I visited an IDP resettlement site. This was one of the sites where the Somali Regional government resettled conflict-affected IDPs who had spent several years in a camp. The resettlement took place smoothly, following consultation with the local communities who belong to the same clan as the IDPs. However, four years after resettling there, the former IDPs could not engage in any production activities – no agriculture or livestock – due to drought. Thus, climate change reinforces the vulnerability of the displaced communities and complicates institutional responses to displacement. Yet, policymakers and practitioners do not include the possible impacts of climate change in their planning. A combination of conflict, drought and floods prolongs the vulnerability of the displacement-affected communities.

Conclusion

In this short piece, I emphasised the mistaken understanding about the role of climate change in displacing as well as in exacerbating the vulnerability of people displaced mainly by conflict. Among the major misunderstandings are: disregard for the fluidity of the boundary between conflict-induced and climate-induced displacement for the vulnerable population, and considering climate-induced displacement as a temporary and less serious problem than conflict-induced displacement. This suggests two things: on the one hand, climate-induced displacements are becoming more dynamic and more complex through time; on the other hand, there seems to exist static perceptions (and a simplification) of climate-change-related displacement on the part of policymakers and other actors. Donors, policymakers and practitioners need to understand the complex effects of climate change on the people already suffering from multiple problems. Interventions need to have a holistic approach where targeting should be based on the degree of vulnerability rather than on conventional, simplistic categorisations.

Fekadu Adugna Tufa is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University.