She left Ethiopia in the middle of the night, on foot, with nothing. Now she sleeps on the floor in Kenya, with nothing to feed her child.
MOYALE, Kenya — Shukria Dalacha is 26 years old. Her baby, Sijra Bonaiyo, was only 5 days old when her mother made the hardest decision of her life: to flee her home in Moyale, Ethiopia, and cross the border into Moyale, Kenya.
She left in the middle of the night. On foot. With almost nothing.
“We came here on foot, deep in the night, running for our lives, arriving here with very little. We have no means to support our families,” she told journalists who visited Moyale.
A WAR THAT STARTED OVER A FLAG
The war that forced Shukria to flee began on 18 October 2026. It started with a dispute over a Somali Regional flag raised at an administration office in Ethiopian Moyale, in an area contested by Oromia and Somali regions.
After gunfire killed a 13-year-old girl, the fighting spread. Houses were burned. People fled.
To date, up to 50,000 people have fled into Kenya, according to UNHCR. Most of them are women and children.
SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR, EATING RICE AND BEANS
Shukria is now in a displacement camp in Moyale, Kenya. She sleeps on the floor. No mattress. No bed.
She eats rice and beans given to families waiting to be registered. She says she does not have enough breast milk to feed her newborn baby, and she worries she will not find anything to feed her.
She is not alone. In one Kenyan host’s home, 30 displaced people shared a single room for sleeping.
Young children sleep on bare floors. Diarrhoea is spreading. Mosquitoes bite them at night.
WHAT IS UNHCR SAYING?
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, says the most urgent needs are food, safe drinking water, shelter, sanitation and health care.
It has deployed an emergency team to Moyale. It is distributing sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, jerrycans and kitchen sets. But its senior emergency coordinator, Henok Ochalla, spoke a painful truth:
“With the limited capacity in terms of financial resources that we have, we will not be able to respond to a larger population.”
This means the money available is far too little compared to the 50,000 people who need help.
UNHCR, together with UNICEF, IOM and WFP, has appealed for $8.9 million to help 50,000 people over 3 months.
A CEASEFIRE IS WHAT IS NEEDED
UNHCR Representative in Kenya, Fatima Mohammed-Cole, thanked Kenya for opening the border, and called for a ceasefire in Ethiopia so that people can return home safely.
Shukria too does not want to stay in Kenya forever. She wants safety only. She wants a place to sleep and something to feed her 5-day-old baby, until the day she can return home in peace.
For now, peace is still far away. Gunfire is still heard in Moyale. The Kenya Defence Forces have detonated RPG explosives that landed on the Kenyan side.
But Shukria still holds on to one hope: her baby is still alive. And even though she sleeps on the floor, at least she sleeps in safety.
By : East African Report Desk | sweden
